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In-depth Business Intelligence
Books on Afghanistan
REPUBLICAN REFERENCE
Area (sq.km)
647,500
Population
26,813,057
Capital
Kabul
Currency
afghani (AFA)
President
Hamid Karzai
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Update No: 047 - (28/10/05)
Parliamentary elections: a flawed success
As the end of October approached, the debate over whether the 18 September
elections in Afghanistan had been a success or a failure was still going on. The
turnout was mostly considered disappointing at 53%, a figure moreover inflated
by community voting. Apart from a range of technical problems, allegations of
rigging were widespread. In the end the Joint Electoral Monitoring Board opted
to exclude 3% of the ballot boxes from the count, a significant percentage but
still falling short of what the observers' reports would have suggested as
necessary. JEMB focused on punishing ballot stuffing, but ignored well
documented allegations of community voting, which were particularly common in
the south-east. JEMB's rather cavalier attitude provided plenty of ammunition to
defeated candidates to protest against and even before final results were
announced, at least two JEMB offices had already been assaulted by candidates
and their supporters.
Determining the actual outcome of the election in the (near-) absence of
political parties is a difficult task. An estimate suggests that 60% of the
successful candidates were civil war commanders and their affiliates, with the
rest being accounted for by tribal leaders, some independents, and some
organised parties. About a dozen former communists made it to the 249-strong
parliament, but split into several rival groups. A few members of the Pashtun
nationalist group Afghan Millat also made it. The biggest failure was that of
the new democratic parties, very few of which managed to elect even a single
representative. It is not clear how many supporters of Karzai were elected, but
a combination of support for his policies and patronage are likely to allow him
to push his legislation through parliament.
Possibly with an eye to mark a certain distance from his American patrons and
appease future parliamentary critics, in October president Karzai appeared again
to challenge US policies in Afghanistan, as he asked for an end to operations
against Al Qaeda. Earlier this year he had demanded that the US hand over
command over the Afghan National Army to the Ministry of Defence, but without
success.
Interior minister resigns
At the end of September Interior Minister Jalali finally handed over his
resignation, following months of speculation that he would be gone before the
establishment of the parliament. He had already attempted to resign earlier in
the year, but Karzai had convinced him to stay until after the elections. It is
known that, despite his denials, Jalali was not happy about Karzai's policy of
appointments, as he would have preferred more professional choices. The
replacement of Jalali is expected to take place after the announcement of the
results of the parliamentary elections and is likely to become a major bone of
contention, as the Ministry of Interior controls the police and all the
appointments in the provinces.
Fighting disaffection
Possibly because of the rising awareness of the rising disaffection of the
population, which showed clearly during the parliamentary elections, in October
the Afghan government launched a couple of measures which seemed meant to
appease the crowd. A US$7 increase to the monthly salary of state employees was
announced, which however failed to make many happy as state salaries remain well
below the cost of living. The other measure announced in October was a subsidy
to the price of coal, which most Afghan used to warm up during the winter.
Considering that the population after will grow with year by almost 2% just
because of the returnees from Pakistan and Iran, and the natural growth of the
population is also close to 2%, even the estimated 11% GDP growth rate might not
be high enough to satisfy the demand for improvement of the people.
A substantial acceleration of growth seems difficult to achieve in the short
term, not least because the driving sector, the illegal economy, appears to have
reached its ceiling. The ADB-sponsored pipeline project which should link
Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan keeps rurning into trouble. The latest
news was that Turkmenistan might now have sufficient reserves after all,
although forecast production has been revised downwards in October. The country,
on the other hand, keeps importing almost everything that it consumes. In fact
indigenous production is in many cases declining further. This year brick
factories are under pressure as affluent Afghans increasingly opt for using
concrete, especially in Kabul and other major cities.
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