Comments on: Afghanistan Votes. Who Cares?

By: el-belle

el-belle — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 20:00:53 +0000

This was meant to go up last week so its a bit out of line with the way comments on this have developed, but I’m curious how the ‘bloc voting’ phenomenon is playing out on the provincial level, and what that can tell us about who in which hierarchy is
giving orders. In other words, if we asked every person in a given province who they were voting for at both the presidential and provincial level, do we see the formation of distinct and rival slates (ie if voting for Karzi then voting for local candidate X at local level but if Abdullah then local candidate Y) or does the selection of local candidates alter independently based on village, local warlord allegiance, religion, ethnicity/tribe (where
either of those is appropriate) or some other identity marker?

I dont think any of these breakdowns indicate a more or less fair election, but I think it would give very important information about how local leaders are using identity as a political motivator (particularly if it turns out to be different in different regions, which would be my uninformed guess). Does anyone know if there has been any systematic attempt to look at this or
have any critiques of why this methodology wouldn’t be useful?

By: Noori Chronicles

Noori Chronicles — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 13:15:40 +0000

This is unbelieveable….they are killing people and for what?

By: omar

omar — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 16:40:12 +0000

IF abdullah wins AND power changes hands, AND karzai stays in afghanistan, that would be a HUGE deal and everyone should care. If Karzai wins (or is declared winner in some shennanigan ridden election) then it doesnt matter.

By: Icanhaz

Icanhaz — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:38:44 +0000

killing people so they can vote

just wrong

By: CHI straightener

CHI straightener — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 09:05:41 +0000

As for the voting in blocs, I believe it was one of the Centlivres duo or Audrey Shalinksy who described this (historically) in parliamentary

By: Kolohe

Kolohe — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 04:57:17 +0000

The very fact that several parties expect the Uzbeks to essentially vote as a bloc makes me question the entire validity of the vote:

Yeah, because African americans and white evangelical christians don’t do that at all.

What?

By: Willem Buys

Willem Buys — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:59:07 +0000

I accept the comment that the Pashtun population of Afghanistan does not constitute the majority in Afghanistan. My line of reasoning was mainly influenced by my experiences in Uruzgan province, and it is wrong to impose them on the country as a whole. The main argument I try to make though is that we tend to focus too much on our western perspective as we value each candidate through their respective capability of developing and modernising the Afghan state, whereas we have a near total neglect for the importance of building popular legitimacy of the Afghan presidency, and I believe that will be the biggest challenge in trying to establish one that will outlive ISAF involvement in Afghanistan. It is for that reason I appeal to existing political traditions to build legitimacy, and if the word Pashtu or other offend you then please substitute it for something else. Individual political participation does not exist in Afghanistan in the way we know it and it would be foolish to assume it can be superimposed from outside.

By: Christian

Christian — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:02:09 +0000

As for the voting in blocs, I believe it was one of the Centlivres duo or Audrey Shalinksy who described this (historically) in parliamentary elections of the 60s and 70s. My guess was that there wasn’t much pressure applied to the people, more a “better the jerk from my people that the other jerk.” As for the get-out-the-vote tactics this time around, we’ll see.

By: Joshua Foust

Joshua Foust — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:22:49 +0000

Not to mention that my example was Uzbeks, who don’t really “do” the tribe thing. Even non-tribal villages have elders. They are voting in blocs, that’s my problem.

By: Noah Tucker

Noah Tucker — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:18:09 +0000

Okay, I’ll bite:

Willem Buys said: Afghan society is for the most structured around its smallest denominator, the tribe, which is where the core allegiance of the Pashtu villager lies.

First of all, the Pashtuns (Pashtu is a language, not an enthicity, btw) are not even the majority of the population of Afghanistan according to any neutral estimates, so I’m not sure how you can build an entire democracy based on their “unique traditions.” Secondly, tribe is not the smallest denominator of even a traditional tribal system, it’s near the top or in the middle, depending on how many levels of organization you go up or down(confederacy and ethnicity are both higher, sub-tribe, clan, and lineage are all below in an idealized segmentary model).

Without getting into the anthropology of tribes, the main argument I have is that the government of Afghanistan cannot be founded or based primarily on idealized Pashtun traditions and called a representative democracy of any sort. People very frequently make the mistake of trying to apply Pashtun models to the all the rest of the country (like creating “tribal militas” for the Uzbeks and Tajiks, for example). I don’t think that’s much of a useful way forward.