Peace or Elections: The Controversy Around Afghanistan’s 2019 Presidential Poll

Afghanistan’s electoral processes are a democratic façade, characterised by manipulation and violence, and overlapping elections for different bodies—all overseen by an incompetent Independent Electoral Commission. Presidential elections are scheduled for September 2019, with disputes from the October 2018 parliamentary elections still unresolved. As both cabinet and parliament are dysfunctional, the presidency’s influence projects well beyond its actual constitutional powers. Many internal and external observers fear that the presidential election will collide with, and disrupt, the peace negotiations.

What’s at stake?

The country’s next presidential election—the fourth electoral cycle since the Taliban regime was toppled in 2001—had originally been scheduled for 20 April 2019. But the not-so-independent Independent Election Commission (IEC) decided to postpone them for three months to 20 July 2019 and then again to 28 September 2019. This brings the process outside the timeframe prescribed by the constitution.

Afghanistan has a mixed presidential-parliamentary political system that tilts towards its presidential side. This is even more the case in practice than on paper. Afghanistan is a highly centralised state built around a powerful executive president who, among other things, appoints all provincial and district governors, the members of various supposedly independent commissions, as well as other bodies such as the Supreme Court.

Presidential influence also includes the appointment of members of the main electoral institutions, the IEC and the Elections Complaints Commission (ECC), which act independently of each other. One consequence of the tilt of Afghanistan’s system of governance towards the president has been that non-presidential elections have received significantly less attention than presidential polls. All have been delayed, starting from the first one in 2005, in the framework of the Bonn Process. The latest parliamentary election was held three-and-a-half years after date required by the constitution, in October 2018. Preliminary results are complete but the final ones are still to be announced, hindered in part by complicated processes of complaints and adjudication.

Provincial council elections have been held with some regularity (in 2005, 2009 and 2014); they are now expected to run simultaneously with the postponed presidential election. There is another problem with the provincial council, however, and that is that the council’s responsibilities vis-à-vis the provincial governors are only vaguely defined from a legal point of view. The first ever district council elections were planned to be held simultaneously with the parliamentary elections on 20 October 2018, but were dropped again due to a lack of organisational capacity.

It is difficult to imagine how all these elections, with the additional complication of rescheduling parliamentary elections in Ghazni province, can realistically be held in the summer of 2019.  Afghanistan’s electoral calendar in the long-term remains fraught with challenges. Cabinet and parliament are largely powerless. There is no prime minister. The creation of a Chief Executive position was a stop-gap measure taken after the 2014 presidential election to resolve a stalemate; President Ashraf Ghani’s main 2014 contender, Abdullah Abdullah, has filled the position. There was a plan to hold a loya jirga to decide whether the position would be abolished, or turned into a nominal head of government. As with so many reforms and administrative measures, this never materialised.

Parliament was already sidelined starting with Ghani’s predecessor, Hamid Karzai, who wanted a free hand. Although parliament needs to pass all major laws, a way was found to circumvent this through generous use of presidential decrees. These measures also need to go through parliament, but they often linger there for years, either between the two houses or between parliament and the executive, while remaining in force. The absence of a constitutional court is sorely missed. This situation worsened in the last parliament’s extended term, during which it was even more rare for MPs to reach the needed quorum for any valid decision. As parliament can censor ministers at any time, it has used this tactic regularly as a retaliatory measure against the executive, with the main result being that cabinet proceedings were obstructed, weakening its role even further.

Presidential elections in Afghanistan are seen as the most significant election in the country by many inside the country and several foreign governments supporting Afghanistan. This belief is where the problem begins. It implies that parliament and electoral delays do not matter when in fact they represent breaks in the constitutional order. This highlights the dysfunctionality, powerlessness and lack of sovereignty of Afghan political institutions, undermining them and damaging the checks-and-balances required for democracy. This context is crucial to understanding Afghanistan’s current political problems.

What is the problem with the 2019 election?

In the view of many donor governments, particularly the US, and many Afghan politicians, presidential elections would stand in the way of a peace agreement with the Taliban. Currently, a US troop withdrawal and peace deal is being pursued by the US administration with new vigour.  A ‘general agreement’ about a framework has been concluded; however, US troop withdrawal and Taliban assurances that Al-Qaeda-type terrorist groups would not be allowed to return to Afghanistan after the end of the war must still be agreed in detail. There is also no settlement on many other important issues, such as the future of the Afghan political system.

Should the upcoming presidential election unfold properly, it would strengthen both the legitimacy of the elected president and the political system in general. This, however, is not what the Taliban want. They demand the political system to be ‘reformed’. These are colliding positions and make negotiations even more difficult. The US negotiator has also considered prioritising ‘peace’ over elections, which further complicates the matter. Formally, as long as negotiations and a final agreement are outstanding, the current Afghan state needs to adhere to its own rules.

The negotiations cast doubt on the original timing of the elections (20 April 2019), as media reports indicated that the US envoy purportedly suggested postponing them. After repeated public assurances that the constitutionally set date would be met, the IEC and the Afghan government finally buckled. On 26 December 2018, the IEC announced that the elections would be delayed until 20 July 2019. And this may not be the final word.

This development reflects the unreliability of Afghanistan’s electoral institutions and the government backing them, but also the enormous external political pressure exerted on them. The pressure to submit to outside interests has been a hallmark of the ‘political process’ since 2001, especially when it comes to elections. Afghanistan’s electoral calendar has often been subjugated to the one in the US.

The Taliban have not laid out in any detail what kind of system they want, apart from the ‘Sharia caveat’, which is enshrined in Article 3 of the Afghan constitution. It is clear that the Taliban do not envisage a multi-party, one-person-one-vote parliamentary system, but one based on the shura principle, which some interpret as a form of Islamic democracy.

The ‘technical’ problems of Afghan elections

Although one finds many references to technical problems impeding the political process, many of the obstacles are in fact political in nature and difficult to resolve in the fragmented Afghan political landscape. References to these problems often serve as a pretext for delaying voting.

The performance of the IEC during the 2018 parliamentary polls has been dismal. It was the worst electoral process in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Once again, there was no reliable voter list. In previous elections no part of the country had been disenfranchised, but on this occasion Ghazni province was. For the first time, an election had to be extended into a second day, as hundreds of polling centres did not open on time, or at all, on the day of voting. For the first time since 2001, an election was held based on two differently verified types of ballots. Ever since the elections in 2004, more Afghans were prevented from voting as security threats led to the closure of around one quarter of the polling centres even long before election day. There have never been fewer reports about how voting unfolded in the rural areas, suggesting a deep urban (vote) versus rural (no vote) gap. Never before had chaos broken out on election day itself; in earlier years, this tended to be confined to the counting and complaint period. Never before was the IEC unable to disclose how many polling centres and stations were really open.

All these problems did not suddenly appear in 2018. They are the result of issues left to fester for over eighteen years and that have compounded each other, and that are now extremely difficult to disentangle and resolve. To postpone or not to postpone has become a dilemma, as well as the question of whether to reform the electoral system. Simply stopping everything and going back to square one is nevertheless not an option. Afghans and their external backers would just face the same political players who created the problem in the first place.

The long list of organisational shortcomings adds to a precarious security situation in which the Taliban make growing gains in territorial and population control. This alone would render inclusive elections impossible, even if electoral institutions worked perfectly. Not to mention the 55 per cent of Afghans who live under the poverty line and have other problems to contend with aside from badly run elections.

The government itself exacerbated the situation with an ill-considered decision to insist on using biometric voter verification (BVV) technology, introduced at the last moment due to political pressure. This led to a conflict between the IEC and the ECC about which votes should be counted in the end. Only those biometrically verified, or also paper-based ones? This situation was resolved through a shady compromise.

This author does not see how, with the same personnel and promises of reform, improvements to the electoral system and its legal framework can be achieved while carrying out the actual elections. This is especially true as the parliamentary polls are still being counted. What could not be resolved in the three and a half years leading up to the 2018 parliamentary poll will not be fixed in a few months. This is because the problems are essentially political.

One major issue is that the main political parties have learnt from earlier elections that vote manipulation, not voting, paves the way to victory and power. Those who have been armed actors at various stages of the last 40 years of conflict have not abandoned their belief that armed violence, or the threat thereof, is a practicable and effective means of seizing power.

The delay in holding the upcoming presidential election achieves one positive outcome: it moves the date out of the first half of spring, a time when many areas are still snowed in and additional voters might be naturally disenfranchised. It also gives more time to the president’s opponents to start their electoral campaigns and to improve their chances vis-à-vis the incumbent. This, however, would be important only if the result was determined exclusively by voting and irregularities were an exception, not a rule.

Who will run, and who will win?

It is too early to predict the probable winners of the upcoming presidential elections. The nomination campaign ended in January 2019, later than planned, and produced several candidates, including top politicians. This includes the incumbent, President Ashraf Ghani (Pashtun) who can constitutionally run for a second, but last time; Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah (Tajik) and Ghani’s former National Security Advisor, Hanif Atmar (Pashtun); Ahmad Wali Massud, a Tajik whose brother was assassinated by guerrilla leader Ahmad Shah Massud; and former head of intelligence, Rahmatullah Nabil, also a Pashtun. The candidates’ ethnicity is important because it is a significant factor in voter decision-making and in the re-alignment among candidates between the first and an expected second round of voting, if no candidate passes the required 50 per cent threshold in round one. That is when the running usually hardens further along ethnic lines.

The list also includes some wild cards, such as former Hezb-e Islami insurgency leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar; former foreign minister Zalmay Rassul and former interior minister and ex-leftist Nur-ul-Haq Ulumi; all of whom are Pashtuns. We know from earlier elections that some candidates run only in order to secure a post-election position from one of the candidates that reach the second round. As a result, there have been cases of candidates who withdrew in the last moment and even still gained votes, as their names remained on the printed ballots.

Two of the three leading candidates, Ghani and Atmar, have opted for a mixed ethnic running. In 2014, with Dostum, an Uzbek ran on Ghani’s ticket. Abdullah’s ticket is somewhat more complicated because he is the son of a Tajik and a Pashtun, and one of his vice-presidential candidates is a Hazara while the other, regardless of his ethnicity, is an ally of Dostum. Atmar, who is teamed up with former interior and education minister Yunus Qanuni, is also a Tajik and Hazara leader. Muhammad Mohaqqeq will tap into three ethnic vote banks: anti-Ghani Pashtuns, Tajiks and Hazaras.

There are also a number of formerly declared candidates, or powerful vote generators, who had been pulled out of the race in return for senior positions in the Ghani government; these include two former intelligence chiefs, Amrullah Saleh (Tajik) and Assadullah Khaled (Pashtun) as well as former interior minister Omar Daudzai (Pashtun). The fact that they accepted their positions, however, does not mean that their followers will necessarily join the ranks of Ghani voters. Pre-election appointments are a proven presidential method to split the main opponents’ vote banks.

Potential ‘Tajik’ candidates, such as former Balkh governor Atta Muhammad Noor, tried to use this method against Ashraf Ghani by luring over regional Pashtun leaders in eastern, southeastern and southern Afghanistan. Abdullah was publicly told by old-hand Jamiati Ismail Khan, from Herat, to let another candidate of the party run this time (Yunus Qanuni), but Abdullah might just give it another try regardless. As a result, it is possible for the first time in post-2001 Afghanistan that the incumbents may lose.

How to win an election?

How the election is won is a more important question than who wins. The IEC and the ECC decide the outcome of elections through mass disqualification of ballot boxes that might have been manipulated. The commissioners are therefore the targets of attempts to pressure and buy them out. The commissioners might also try to promote those politicians who played a part in their appointment.

It has become obvious over successive elections that those who control, even partly, the electoral institutions are the ones who have the ability to manipulate the system. Voters and votes do not really count. Voters cannot know in the end whether their votes are even counted, further decreasing popular trust in Afghan elections over time.

Conclusion

Another bad election would further increase the instability of the Afghan political system. The signs are not encouraging. The 2018 parliamentary elections were a test run and they failed.

As mentioned above, the use of force and the threat thereof remain on the cards. Whether there will be an outbreak of violence depends on how the elections and their aftermath are handled. The risk, however, increases every time a powerful armed faction feels cheated out of victory. The stakes are higher than during the recent parliamentary polls (during which conflict is diluted among 34 constituencies), but even these elections are not over yet. Afghanistan’s ‘democratic’ system is approaching a dangerous bend on the road supposedly leading to its stabilisation. So far, the democratic system is largely a democratic façade. It remains to be seen whether Western donors will continue to accept this.

The situation has become even gloomier with the threat of a rushed US troop withdrawal. This is likely to further undermine, if not lead to the collapse of the entire system. This warning should not be interpreted as a prophecy or as being overly pessimistic. Recent Afghan history has seen such collapses in 1973, 1978, 1992 and 1996.

There is only one solution, but it needs a considerable amount of time: real democratisation, institutional rejuvenation and elite change. This would require a new approach that is not donor-centric, and that prioritises Afghans’ needs and interests, and not only the needs and interests of the elite. Another dilemma may be that even if such an approach were developed, Afghans would not necessarily trust Western intentions anymore. So a process of electoral and other reform, as well as of gradual democratisation, would also be needed to rebuild trust in donors.

One should not rely on the much-hyped young, educated, generation that is enmeshed in the same traditional system of patronage, and is often only too ready to play along. This applies to women, too.