Boycott threatens Afghanistan's foray into democracy

Polling day begins vigorously in the village of Deh Afghanan. Men push and crowd their way into the polling stations, impatient for their first taste of democracy.

They aren't quite sure how it all works, but that doesn't matter. Polling officials punch holes in their voting cards, paint the men's left thumbnails with indelible ink markers, and go through the same old questions with the patience of Job.

"Take this ballot, and whoever you want to vote for, you just mark the spot next to the picture," says an official.

A young man points to a picture of President Hamid Karzai. "Not here," the official says, "in the voting booth, please."

The giddy enthusiasm that was obvious here and in 4,800 voting centers around the country was a positive first test for democracy in Afghanistan and a welcome sign that this brand new system was being embraced by Afghan citizens. For many Afghans, the greatest relief was that Saturday's elections were largely free of the violence threatened by Taliban fighters and feared by security experts.

But the mood of the voters out in the countryside, and even in the city of Kabul itself, was in stark contrast to the mood among the candidates themselves, who by noon had accused the Karzai government and its supporters of fraud and manipulation. Whatever the merits of the opposition's complaints, their call for a suspended election has serious risks. It raises the prospects of even more backroom deals, and could make it difficult for the eventual winner to establish his legitimacy as a leader. Even worse, it could turn voter enthusiasm into cynicism in a single stroke, causing more damage to Afghanistan's future than any Taliban rocket.

No one ever said that Afghanistan's first presidential elections were going to be perfect. UN officials admitted that there appeared to be significant numbers of Afghans who had obtained multiple voter registration cards. And since Afghanistan has not had a proper census for decades, there is no reliable list of voters, no standardized form of identification, none of the usual stopgaps that can protect against citizens voting early and often.

In Deh Afghanan, a Pashtum majority district in Wardak Province, west of Kabul, it became clear early on that there was problem with the indelible ink markers. Basically, they aren't indelible. Another problem is that by 9:00 a.m., there are still no women election officials, just a female supervisor who must start calling around to find the women who had signed up for this job months ago.

They are the problems of negligence, not of malice, something one would expect in a first-ever election.

Haji Ghulam Sakhi rubs the black ink off his thumbnail with the end of his turban. "Look, it comes off so easily," he says, with some alarm. "There should be a special marker. We heard on radio that the ink they are using is not real, it's false.

Yet Haji Sakhi says that "this is the happiest day of my life. This is the first time I have the right to vote. God is great and he is kind for bringing us an election where we can choose our leaders."

In Kabul, at Abu Zahra Ghafari High School, women in burqa veils line up in the chilled morning light. Zia Jan and three of her family members decided to vote together, and they walked from their homes to the school. The process in the polling station is smooth and orderly, two qualities typically in short supply in Afghanistan.

"We are very happy about voting," says Zia Jan, who belongs to the Shiite minority of ethnic Hazaras. "We are not afraid of any attacks. If we are killed, we will still vote. We just want a president who brings peace, we don't want anything else."

Col. Gulab Naikzai and his wife Shireen came to vote together, although they eventually had to enter separate male and female voting stations to cast their votes.

"We want a clean, honest, patriotic person for president, someone who will reconstruct the education system, not just in the government centers but in every village of Afghanistan," says Colonel Naikzai, who serves in the new 14,000-man Afghan National Army. "This election is for our children's future," says Shireen Naikzai.

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