Posted on 10/06/2005 1:27:12 PM PDT by nickcarraway
KABUL -- War-scarred Afghanistan took another step on Thursday toward forming its first parliament in more than three decades when the first provisional results from last month's landmark vote were released.
But with key warlords and members of the ousted Taliban regime dominating initial counting in some areas, there was concern that the new body would become mired in the old power struggles that have broken down this destitute nation.
"We have now completed the physical process of counting the ballot papers in all provinces across Afghanistan," said Peter Erben, head of the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) that organized the September 18 elections.
"We are pleased to announce the provisional result from two provinces today, Nimroz and Farah," he said. These results would be audited before being finalized.
Erben did not immediately announce who had won seats to the new national assembly and provincial councils for the two provinces.
He said that other provisional results were expected in the coming days, with investigations continuing into ballot boxes that have been put in quarantine because of suspected fraud, including ballot stuffing.
"We hope to certify all the provisional results by October 22 and the parliament will then be convened by President [Hamid] Karzai," JEMB spokesman Aleem Siddique said.
That parliament, the first since 1969, would likely be a chaotic body made up of all the "same old faces", said analyst Joanna Nathan from the International Crisis Group.
"This is an election of individuals and in such a system it became all about name recognition. You see all the same old faces coming back," Nathan said.
Political parties were disallowed and the nearly 5,800 candidates for the parliament and 34 provincial councils ran as individuals, presenting voters with a bewildering array of names squeezed onto two newspaper-sized ballot papers.
Some of the winners are likely to be warlords accused of atrocities during Afghanistan's decades of civil war, and members of the fundamentalist Taliban regime whose years of brutal rule were ended in a US-led campaign in late 2001.
"There has been no will by the Karzai administration and its international backers to tackle the abuses of the past," Nathan said.
"All along they have been talking about justice and stability and somehow tackling the abuses of the past is seen as a luxury ... this has created a false stability."
Nathan said that the voter turnout, put at about 53 percent nationally, reflected some disquiet among war-weary Afghans about who was on the ballot. The turnout for the October 2004 elections that voted in Karzai was around 67 percent.
A key concern about the new 249-seat national assembly was that it could vote itself an amnesty for past abuses, she said.
"Also it is going to be very chaotic for quite a while to come because of lack of the political parties. Even optimists say it will take six months to a year for workable caucuses to form," she said.
Security experts have also warned of the potential for an increase in violence after the results are known because of a so-called "assassination clause", which states that if a candidate cannot take his position for any reason, the person with the next number of votes will take his place.
There has already been one killing since the election: a candidate who was in the top three in the count in the northern city of Mazar-I-Sharif was killed last week. Seven were killed in the run-up to the elections.
The JEMB's Siddique said, however, that the limited unrest before the poll, which Taliban insurgents vowed but failed to disrupt, boded well for the next stage of the process.
"We hope the candidates will demonstrate the same dignity that the voters demonstrated on polling day by accepting the outcome of these election results," he said.
Quagmire! Run for the hills!
It's amazing to me. This is huge story and there is only one reply on Free Republic. And people wonder why the public doesn't recognize how successful the president's antiterrorism policy is. I cannot believe the president did not make a big deal about this. This is a vindication of his policy, and a prelude to what will eventually happen in Iraq. The fact is Bush's foreign policy has been great. But the PR has been D+, at best. Barely any Freepers even cared about this.
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