Thousands of miles away from Germany, Afghans were also heading to the polls for their country’s first democratic parliamentary elections in 35 years:
Afghans flocked to the polls today to vote in the country’s first democratic parliamentary elections in 35 years.
Although there were scattered attacks around the country, the gunmen who have been trying to subvert the elections did not succeed in preventing the voting. The crucial question facing the country is whether warlords who once ruled by force will succeed in convincing Afghans to vote them into elected office.
Results for today’s election, in which a raft of former militia commanders ran for seats in Parliament and provincial councils, will be announced next month…
Election officials hailed today’s poll as “extremely healthy” though early assessments suggested that turnout was disappointingly low. “We did see some procedural irregularities but nothing that I consider systemic and which would have influenced the overall conduct of the election,” said Peter Erben, the chief international election officer with the United Nations-assisted Joint Elections Management Board. Violent attacks were isolated and had little impact on the process, he said. “This was a peaceful and good election.”
He added that only 16 of roughly 6,000 polling centers did not open…
The strength and substance of the Parliament will be a crucial test of Afghanistan’s still fragile transition from conflict to peace. The parliamentary elections, which come nearly a year after presidential elections last October, had been clouded in recent weeks by an increasingly nasty stream of guerrilla attacks against the Afghan government and its American backers. The elections signal the end of the Bonn Accords of 2001, the international program for Afghanistan’s transition since the fall of the Taliban.
“It’s a day of self-determination for the Afghan people,” said President Hamid Karzai, looking sleepy as he and aides voted at 7 a.m. at government offices in central Kabul. “After 30 years of wars, interventions, occupation and misery, today Afghanistan is moving forward, making an economy, making political institutions.”
Let’s hope so. Democracy is a beautiful thing, whether in Berlin or Kabul, but Afghanistan still has a long way to go.