In this article, I would like to discuss the role of peacebuilders in holding peaceful elections in Afghanistan, especially since my country is once again under the control of the Taliban. One of the reasons for this current crisis in Afghanistan is that over the last 20 years, especially in the last two rounds of presidential elections, the country has not been able to hold fully transparent and peaceful elections.
History of Elections in Afghanistan
Elections are meant to be a collective participation of a country’s citizens in determining a common destiny or common future. Elections should create a sense of integrity, solidarity, and unity. Ideally, because all citizens are deciding this common future together, this process should create a spirit of mutual acceptance and strengthen a common sense among members of society.
After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Afghanistan officially became the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, meaning that it was to become a fully democratic country with the right of citizens to vote. However, even prior to this, the concept of elections first appeared in the Afghan system of government during the reign of Shah Amanullah Khan, one of the kings of Afghanistan who ruled between 1919 and 1929. During the reign of this king, some institutions such as the State Council and the Loya Jirga were made up of members elected by the people, but the concept of elections was not used in its true sense, as it was still the king who made the final decision.
The concept of democratic elections in Afghanistan was used in its true sense only after the Bonn Conference in 2001 when the people could elect their own president at the national level and their representatives in the parliament and provincial councils. According to the 2004 Constitution of Afghanistan and the Electoral Law, every Afghan citizen aged 18 or over shall vote for their preference for president and representatives in the parliament and provincial council, thus having a say in the fate of their country. The elections in Afghanistan were intended to be free, secret, direct, and public.
In most countries, even in economically developed countries, elections can be tense periods. In developing countries like Afghanistan, these tensions are much greater and can often turn violent. Because elections were a relatively new phenomenon and people were not familiar with its exact meaning, elections became a means of fomenting ethnic-based politics, causing division and animosity. One election after another fueled more ethnic-based politics to the point that even the goals of some of the candidates and the slogans they used were geared toward their particular ethnic and linguistic groups. The 2014 and 2019 elections were even more controversial and tense than previous elections because the two fiercest rivals represented two distinct ethnic groups.
In both elections, there were runoff elections between Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, the two candidates who received the most votes. In both, Ashraf Ghani was nominated by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) as president-elect. Abdullah Abdullah did not accept this and accused Ashraf Ghani of rigging the election. This issue caused great tension between the two candidates and their factions in both elections.
In the 2014 elections, neither of the candidates won after two rounds of voting. One of the most negative consequences was the creation of two parallel governments and the disruption of Afghanistan's governance system for almost eight months. With the mediation of the United States and the United Nations, there was at least an agreement to form a government of national unity based on an equal distribution of power between the two candidates. With the tension still there and even escalating, the issue repeated itself in the 2019 election.
Abdullah Abdullah and Mohammad Ashraf Ghani both considered themselves the winners of the 2019 presidential election. Zalmai Khalilzad, the US State Department's special envoy for Afghanistan, Tadamichi Yamamoto, the UN special envoy to Afghanistan, and the US embassy in Kabul spoke to both sides, and meetings took place between the two rivals, but no satisfactory outcome was reached. Both Ghani and Abdullah were sworn in on March 10, 2019, and formed two parallel governments. Two days after the inauguration, Mohammad Ashraf Ghani issued a decree abolishing the formation of the executive chief and all its annexes to the government structure. Abdullah Abdullah, for his part, wrote on his Facebook page that the national unity government was over and that Mohammad Ashraf Ghani was no longer president. He would soon officially introduce the "inclusive government" chief executive. He stressed that Ashraf Ghani's orders and rulings were not valid and that the military and civilian staff of the executive branch should continue their daily duties and responsibilities as before. Even the visit of the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a US$1 billion cut in aid to the Afghan Security Forces in 2020 “to try to force Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his political rival Abdullah Abdullah to end a feud"* did not resolve the dispute. The tensions continued and these affected many government activities.
Finally, after months of conflict between Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, they signed a "Political Agreement" on May 17, 2020. Under the agreement, Ashraf Ghani would serve as Afghanistan's president, while Abdullah Abdullah would be the Chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation.
The Role of Peacebuilders in Afghan Elections
In both elections 2014 and 2019, there were individuals who acted as mediators to settle the dispute between the two candidates and their groups, including the U.S. Secretary of State or his representatives, representatives from the United Nations, and Afghan tribal elders. Although none of them possessed the necessary skills that those of us working in the field of peacebuilding have, at the end of the day, they at least solved the immediate problem. Without their intervention, the tension could have escalated to a civil war in Afghanistan. This potential outcome was all too possible given the escalation experienced in the aftermath of the withdrawal of the Soviet forces from Afghanistan. That withdrawal led to very serious civil wars in Afghanistan, and there were fears it would happen again.
As a peacebuilder, fundamental questions remain: Did the mediation processes with the two presidential candidates after the 2014 and 2019 elections really solve the problem in a profound and radical way? Did the unresolved root of the tensions between the two candidates and their groups in part pave the way for the Taliban to take control of Afghanistan?
Following both the 2014 and 2019 elections, the two sides never really achieved a fundamental and satisfactory agreement, and their conflict was not resolved radically. They had reached a 50-50 agreement only to get out of the crisis. In the end, this prolonged the conflict between the two candidates.
If someone was selected as a mediator to resolve the tensions between the two presidential candidates who was truly a peacebuilder or had the skills of a peacebuilder in both rounds of elections—especially in the 2019 elections—perhaps the problems would have been resolved on a deeper level and Afghanistan would be in a different place today. Perhaps even going back to the elections of 2004, if peacebuilders, in accordance with the election process, had been utilized to help resolve tensions related to the elections, work to counter the misinformation by candidates against opponents, and help to minimize ethnic divisions, and generally use their peacebuilding skills, election tensions could have been resolved from the beginning or would not have become so great that they were impossible to resolve.
Elections as a way of choosing new leaders in Afghanistan—a developing country—were completely new, and the people of Afghanistan were not familiar with the culture of elections. This led to tensions between the candidates and their groups, especially in the presidential elections. The role of international mediators and tribal leaders in resolving these tensions, even if superficially, cannot be ignored. However, if we had involved people with peacebuilding skills in the electoral process from the first elections along with the IEC and candidate teams to help resolve small tensions and deal with ethnic issues, we may not have seen the fall of the Afghan government in 2021 and all the fallout we are facing today.
Latifa Nawroozi has been working with the International Assistance Mission Peacebuilding Project in Kabul before she moved to Germany in late 2021, where she and her husband are now living. She has attended MPI’s Annual Peacebuilding Training in 2018 and the Facilitation Skills Training of Trainers for Peacebuilders in 2019.
* https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-afghanistan-exclusive-idUSKBN21N0CJ
Photo: U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Mary Simms, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons