By Beatrice Jeschek

© Omar Sobhani/Reuters

Every third Afghan entitled to vote did actually vote in the parliamentary elections last week. The people have shown courage.


Political experts announced just before the election in Afghanistan that there would be no choice as known in a Western-style democracy. During the election, pessimistic voices were proven right in their criticism.

Once again, people kept on cheating. Taliban kidnapped candidates and election workers. Insurgents attacked polling stations with rockets, killing more than 40 people.

A rocket which insurgents in Kabul fired at the headquarters of the International Security Assistance Forced (ISAF), missed its target.

However, the insurgents could not prevent that 32 percent of the Afghan people voted. Despite the threats of the Taliban, despite the generally poor security situation which led to the closing down of approximately 1500 polling stations – one of three made use of his or her right to vote.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, praised in a statement the tenacity of the estimated 4 million people who turned out to vote amid “significant security challenges”.

Female voters in Mazar-e-Scharif

The Afghans have shown courage. Corrupt politicians, an incompetent judiciary and occasionally powerless security forces were no reason for this one third of the population to dismiss democracy. This is more than one could have expected from this election.

U.N. officials on the other hand alerted it would be too early to call the election a success. There were serious concerns about fraud (cf. Afghan election in 2009).

"It is now up to the Afghan electoral bodies, the Independent Election Commission and the Complaints Commission, to complete their job," said Staffan de Mistura, the U.N. special envoy to Afghanistan, in a statement.

Final results of the Afghan election are expected at the end of October.

This article was first published 20/09/2010 on maltastar.com.