It seems that there is hardly an election anywhere these days where, if the governing party is the winner, the defeated opposition does not immediately claim that the vote was rigged and that they were the real victors. It can turn violent in some cases. Last year, Kenya and Zimbabwe topped the disputed election list but in Armenia, Mongolia and Nicaragua too the opposition claimed loudly they were robbed of victory. This year the list is even longer: There have been claims of cheating in Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Togo, Congo (Brazzaville) and just this last week in Gabon, although attention remains most focused on the elections in Iran and, now, Afghanistan.
It is, of course, easy in less than transparent political systems for losers to justify a poor performance with claims they were robbed. It is also easier in such places for governing parties to cook the books — although it would be patronizing to imagine that corruption is a problem only in the newer democracies. Those who imagine that should remember the row during George W. Bush’s first US presidential bid in 2004; they have to accept, too, that January’s election in Ghana was a model of political propriety.
Where results have been disputed, it does not always make a difference. In most cases, the world has accepted the official results, albeit with qualms, and dealt with those in power; in the compromised world of realpolitik, might — not right — rules.
This may turn out to be the case in Afghanistan, where the latest results of the Aug. 20 presidential election appear to award victory to Hamid Karzai on the first ballot. He is, after all, in power and the NATO-led international military forces in the country are more than happy to do business with him. Moreover, if it were just the opposition claiming that there has been fraud and that it was robbed or left-wing, anti-US voices protesting, such dissent would almost certainly be ignored — in much the same way that protest about Moldova’s and Kyrgyzstan’s elections have been.
There is, however, one major problem for him — and for the international community. Claims of election fraud have been endorsed by the Afghan Electoral Complaints Commission, an independent body but widely seen as an arm of the UN; some of its commissioners were appointed by the UN. So far it has upheld only a miniscule number of the thousands of complaints made, invalidating the results from 83 polling stations in Kandahar, Paktika and Ghazni provinces. But this could be taken as proof that the election and Karzai’s victory have been a giant fraud.
The problem for Washington, London, Paris and all the countries with troops there — and for the UN under whose authority they act and for Karzai — is that without their presence he would be without power; they maintain him in power. If his legitimacy is open to question, it undermines the legitimacy of working with him and supporting him. An electorally discredited Karzai is the last thing that President Barack Obama and his allies need. But it cannot be ruled out.
