Polling for Afghanistan's presidential and provincial council elections is slated for 20 August, against a backdrop of increasing and unprecedented violence that is putting more Afghans at risk than at any time since 2001. According to data for the first four months of 2009, the number of security-related incidents rose by 43 percent over the previous year.
The deteriorating security has raised concerns about the electoral process being compromised. The insecurity, according to a joint report released in early July by the UN's Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, could have an impact on the overall ability of candidates to actively campaign, and therefore on the ability of voters to make informed choices. However, as the International Crisis Group points out, proceeding with the polls is recognised as the "least bad option".
Five years since the country's first presidential and provincial-council elections, the electoral process remains deeply flawed and compromised, and yet it represents another small, grudging step towards democracy. Currently, political parties are banned from involvement in elections, members of political parties can only contest as individuals without affiliation. This situation is exacerbated by the confusing electoral law, which combines multi-seat constituency-based voting with a single non-transferable vote-counting process, ensuring a fragmented polity dominated by individuals.
The current electoral mathematics for the presidential elections is no different. President Hamid Karzai's deft manoeuvring appears to have sewn up support for him from some of the most powerful figures of the Afghan polity, including those earlier discredited by the government, such as the northern strongman Abdul Rasheed Dostum. Dostum, who was earlier chief of staff to President Karzai (a purely symbolic role), was removed from that position following a series of embarrassing events, including kidnapping and holding hostage a rival in the heart of Kabul city.