World Political Blog » Democracy

Run off in Afghanistan polls on 7 November 2009

Ashish — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:18:45 +0000

The Presidential elections in Afghanistan are key to the stability of the country, and in the fight against the Taleban and foreign militants. Afghanistan and border regions of Pakistan hold the key in the fight against global terrorism, and ensuring that there is an effective Government in Afghanistan is an integral part of that battle. However, this is easier said than done, and there have been a series of bad decisions taken in the past that have made things pretty bad right now, to the extent that the Taleban, which seemed defeated in 2001, is now resurgent and is control of an increasing large section of the country.
Hamid Karzai became the President when the country was removed from the grip of the Taleban, and over a period of time, the hopes and promises from Karzai have gradually decreased, to the extent that there is now a distance between the US administration and Karzai. There is less public support for Karzai from Obama and his team, and Karzai also openly condemns the US when there is some bombing or other steps that kill civilians.

In the midst of all this, there were the elections that took place. These elections were fraught with allegations of fraud and malpractices, with the contender, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah claiming that Karzai had taken a number of steps to influence people to vote for him, and during the time of elections, there was voter fraud. These charges have been repeated often enough that the election was seen as disputed, even though Karzai claims that he won the election and there was no need for a runoff.
However, it now seems that Karzai has accepted that the election was not as straight forward as he initially stated, and that he has agreed to a run off (even though the article states that it was not easy to get Karzai to agree to a run off) (link to article):

It had been hard to get President Hamid Karzai to accept a run-off, he said. Earlier, there were indications that Mr Karzai and his rival Abdullah Abdullah were discussing a power-sharing deal. The UN meanwhile announced that 200 top officials who had allegedly been complicit in electoral fraud in August were being replaced.
In an interview with the BBC’s Lyse Doucet, Mr Eide admitted that there had been difficult days of discussion in Kabul to convince President Karzai to accept a second round vote on 7 November.

Afghan election scenario gets murkier

Ashish — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:24:13 +0000

In the run upto to the Afghan elections and soon after the elections, there were wide-spread allegations of election fraud, of corrupt practices, and downright stealing of the election. The Afghan elections were structured that if no candidate got more than 50% of the vote, there would be a run-off to decide the final winner. Soon after the election, the current President, Hamid Karzai, declared that he was the winner by a significant margin, a claim disputed by the supporters of his challenger, the former Afghan foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah. That claim has not been settled till late, and it is of no credit to the Election Commission that it has allowed the process to continue till now. This happens at a time when the credibility of the Government is low, since it does not control an increasing larger section of the country (the resurgent Taliban is fighting in larger sections of the country), with the Government being accused of corruption and of being unable to provide effective governance, with large sections of the population claiming that they do not have basic facilities.
At such a time, the Government, and its supporters among the major powers can ill afford to have this kind of instability in the country, but the fact is that the allegations of voter fraud have served to reduce the legitimacy of Hamid Karzai, and his Government, which is also not fully supported by the United States.

At such a time, the independent election commission is also undergoing turmoil, with the recent firing of the top deputy of the UN (Peter Galbraith) over allegations of voter fraud. An important member of the election commission, and a native Afghan, Judge Mustafa Barakzai, resigned from the commission claiming that his views were ignored (link to article):

Complaints of irregularities have dogged the presidential elections. The top United Nations official in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, admitted Sunday that the vote was marred by “widespread fraud.” Eide’s recently fired deputy Peter Galbraith told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday that Eide earlier refused to share details of voting irregularities with Afghan election officials. Galbraith also said his former boss could have prevented some fraud by closing unsecured polling stations.
With findings of the fraud complaints investigation upcoming, Galbraith said he anticipates the commission will determine that Afghan President Hamid Karzai will not have enough votes to avoid a runoff. “I think there’s a very strong likelihood that the election complaints commission will find that he’s below 50 percent, and then the question is whether Karzai will accept that decision and whether the Independent Election Commission, which is not independent but a pro-Karzai body, will accept that decision,” Galbraith said.

Congress the grand victor of the 2009 Indian elections

Ashish — Sat, 16 May 2009 19:31:26 +0000

So, the bitterly contested election results of the Indian Lok Sabha (Parliamentary elections) are out, and it is the incumbent party, the Congress Party that is the decisive winner. During the course of the campaign and even during the month long multi-stage voting process, it seemed that there was a tight fight between the Congress and the BJP led camps. It was also projected that there would be an incredible fight for support from the smaller parties all over the country. This prospect saw these parties salivating over the prospect, and over the demands they would make from the major parties for this support.
So there was a constant tussle about whether existing partners are viable or not, and some parties made gambles. The Biju Janta Dal gambled that it would come back to power without the support of the BJP, the Congress gambled that it would need to build long-term in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh (and in Bihar, it did not have much of a choice, since Lalu gave the party only 3 seats). The Congress gambled about going with the DMK even though Jayalalitha seemed to be the one riding the victory wagon. However, as the election result day came closer, nervousness gripped the Congress and it talked about changing partners, soliciting the support of the Left, looking to Nitish and Jayalalitha for support, and even trying to get closer to the Samajwadi Party.

The exit polls that started getting published once the stay on them was removed after the 13th (the last phase of election) were again off the mark, since they all projected that the Congress will have a narrow lead over the BJP and would need support from many parties. The BJP of course refused to believe such polls and stood fast in projecting that they will be the victors.
And then came the election results – and they were shocking to everyone. The Congress led poll, the UPA, is almost at the point of having half the seats, while the BJP led alliance, the NDA, is way behind. The Congress gained seats all over the country, with the party looking to reach 200 seats on its own (its best result since it started declining in the 1989 polls); it trounced the BJP in many states that the BJP should count as core constituencies such as Haryana, Rajasthan, Delhi, Uttranchal, and made gains even in states such as Madhya Pradesh and Gujrat. The Congress made real good in states such as Andhra Pradesh, with the partners, the DMK, in Tamil Nadu.
However, the major surprises in this election happened in multiple states; in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress needs to get back its core constituency and it seems that the gamble it took seems to have paid off (it has got 20 seats on its own), in Maharashtra, the MNS seems to have bitten into the seats of the Shiv Sena and the BJP and led the Congress to victory. The biggest surprise has been the Left strongholds of Kerala and West Bengal. Kerala frequently changes between the Congress and the Communist, and in this election, the fight between the different factions of the Communist party propelled the Congress to victory. The biggest surprise seems to have been in West Bengal where the Congress combination with Mamta Banerjee blew away the Communist party in the state where the Communists have held sway since 1977.
What are some of the conclusions from this election:
- Manmohan Singh re-emerges as the Congress Prime Minister with a much stronger support and with less interference from supporting parties
- The BJP leader LK Advani will slowly fade away – he is already 81 years old and unlikely to be the leader in the next election
- Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi are the unquestioned leaders of the country now – even people such as me who do not believe in dynastic based leadership have to acknowledge that they have led their party to a genuine victory
- Nitish Kumar and Naveen Patnaik are new emblems of victory, with strong shows of performance and low individual corruption levels
- The Left, having been used to a much stronger influence in the last Parliament will be a pale self with questions about the leadership becoming much stronger
- Mayawati has faced a severe setback in her quest for national leadership; the same goes for former influential leaders such as Mulayam Singh Yadav (who suffered after inducting Kalyan Singh), Lalu Prasad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan
- Economic policies and world related policies should remain the same and in fact become more clear and without the holding back due to the Left