President Karzai Points His Finger

Afghan President Karzai accuses UN over election Fraud

President Hamid Karzai is pointing his finger at the west today, accusing them of attempting to push him out of office. During President Karzai's statement he singled out American Ambassador Peter Galbraith. Incidentally I had planned on writing on the Ambassador before I read this story.

Last week I attended a presentation given by Ambassador Galbraith on this very subject, called Afghanistan: War of Necessity or Quagmire. A web search reveals that he's been traveling to quite a few places to give this presentation. Something he hinted at during his speech. Here's a link to a similar speech given to the Vermont Council on World Affairs.

Altogether I found him to be rather interesting, covering topic areas such as the country's need for decentralization and Afghanistan's recent history with Pakistan and the election:

The long and the short of it is that both Ambassador Galbraith and President Karzai have a lot of bad blood over last year's election fraud. According to Ambassador Galbraith the election was plauged with "wholesale" election fraud perpetrated by members of the election commission appointed by Karzai.

Karzai did manage to eke out a reelection- basically by getting his opponent to decline to stand for the runoff. Galbraith was dismissed from his role in the United Nations mission for criticizing events. Since then he has made it a point to speak out against Karzai's ongoing attempts to steal power in Afghanistan.

Galbraith is rightly angry- it it is NATO soldiers that protect his regime and Western dollars that fund his government and pay for elections. Karzai's vote rigging has made Afghanistan more dangerous and more expensive for its western allies. Karzai has since attempted to change election laws to remove international oversight of elections and replace them with his political allies. He did this over the objections of Afghanistan's parliament, and less than a year before this year's parliamentary elections.

Ambassador Galbraith had a couple suggestions for fixing Afghanistan's election system; first, truly remove the election officials appointed by Karzai and actually fire those found with their hands stuffing the ballot box. And in the long run constitutional reform designed to decentralize the country's governance structure- something that the Ambassador doesn't suspect is very high on the country's agenda. Galbraith  also states an alternative "If Afghans want to have a fraudulent election, they should pay for it themselves."

This is the heart of the issue. The international community is not in Afghanistan because they want to be. It is an expensive intervention in a remote region. There is little to no economic gain out of being there. The country is a source of drugs and is a potential threat to international security. These issues are important, but the international community's patience is very limited and there are other countries that have the same problems and are easier to get to. What does President Karzai think he'll be the president of without his allies? Does he think his government will last long when he can't exercise its authority outside of Kabul? Or does he think that Afghanistan is so indispensable to the international community that they will stay there forever no matter what?  Members of the Dutch government recently thought otherwise.

Afghanistan gets murkier

Article: Karzai Criticized Over Afghan poll watchdog move

President Hamid Karzai "won" last year's elections amidst wide spread allegations of vote fraud- many of which were documented by the country's Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC). It ended up that about a third of Karzai's votes were illegal.

He managed to keep his job, but has now fired all the internationally appointed members of the EEC. Its likely that Karzai will continue to keep his job for quite some time, as long as he can continue to keep the international community engaged. Its a stupid move all around designed to "win" some elections for Karzai's allies.

This doesn't work well for the people of Afghanistan- who already have to deal with grinding poverty and chronic insecurity, and now have a leader that is transparently crooked. It doesn't work terribly well for the United States, whose troops are fighting the Taliban and whom has poured billions of dollars into the country to build something lasting. Its a serious step backwards for the country, and legitimatizes its fledgling institions.

Does it even really work well for Karzai? The timing is rather good for people in the international community not to notice- with much of the world's focus on the Olympic games. If last year's elections were not an Emperor has no clothes moment, then firing the truth tellers certainly is. In the short run it will probably help Karzai win elections. In the long run, it is self destructive. It undermines his international backers will to continue to supply money and troops. 

One group it does work out rather well for the Taliban. Karzai really shouldn't be doing their propaganda work for them.

There needs to be accountability for this behavior. Otherwise the effort is little more than putting up a strawman (not even a strongman, as the government's influence is limited) and calling it a day. This will do nothing to make the country safer for anyone, will do nothing to make the country more just. It does nothing to save the lives of civilians or soldiers. All it serves to do is aggrandize Karzai and delegitimze his government. The Afghan people deserve better than this.

What about Afghan accountability for this? What about the country's civil society and the opposition parties? The future will tell if they will be able to use this power grab to hold the government to account. However with the election commission under the president's thumb, loudly boycotting the elections may be the best choice. 

Its tragic that our country is supporting a vote rigging leader in Afghanistan while condemning one next door in Iran.