‘Democracies make elections, elections don’t make democracies.’ This applies particularly to Afghanistan that has been trying to be a democracy since the Bonn Agreement that created the country’s post-Taliban government in 2001. Even more desperate than this attempt are the never-tiring efforts of the West, especially the United States, to approach Afghanistan as a Western-style democracy and finding ‘legitimate political players in Afghanistan that they can work with on the political side as well as the military side.’
Because of the not so unfounded speculation that Hamid Karzai rigged the recent elections in his favor, reevaluation of the election results now point to a run-off. To thicken the plot just a little bit more, Karzai’s political rival, Abdullah, may boycott runoff vote. He also demands an overhaul of the Afghan election commission, something that the biggest and proudest among the many Afghanistan political warlords, Karzai, will never consider. To further stiffen the standoff, Karzai, himself, nixes any impending power-sharing government. This is one country where democracy will never see the light of day. It is, after all, a country that is even proud of its tribal warlordism culture.
Experts believe that ‘the runoff election will not make the winner legitimate in the eyes of the Afghan people because democratic elections aren’t a source of legitimacy in Afghanistan and Afghan politics,’ anyway. The Western definition of democracy does not, and will never, apply in Afghanistan.
If there is any semblance of democracy that Afghanistan practices, it is pure Greek democracy at the village level which the country has been using for two millennia. In the first place, Afghanistan is ‘primarily 75 to 80 percent rural,’ and that the average Afghan in the hinterlands does not really have a clear idea of what is going on.
So long as the West does not fully grasp what Afghan-style democracy is, it will always fail in its attempt to make it a democratic partner. Thus, it is also true when critics say that the US is clueless as to what to do with Afghanistan.
Via Council on Foreign Relations
