Afghanistan presidential election, 2004
Encyclopedia
An election to the office of President of Afghanistan
was held on October 9, 2004. Hamid Karzai
won the election with 55.4% of the votes and three times more votes than any other candidate. Twelve candidates received less than 1% of the vote. It is estimated that more than three-quarters of Afghanistan's nearly 12 million registered voters cast ballots. The election was overseen by the Joint Electoral Management Body, vice-chaired by Zakim Shah
and American diplomat Ray Kennedy.
After some accusations of fraud circulated on the day of the election, at least fifteen candidates declared that they were boycotting the ballot, but the boycott dissolved when the United Nations
announced it would set up a three-person independent panel to investigate the charges of irregularities. The panel included a former Canadian
diplomat
, a Swedish
electoral expert, and the third member was later named by the European Union
.
The date was originally set for July 5, 2004. The elections were twice postponed, first until September, and then until October. Candidates for president also nominated two vice-presidential candidates. Some candidates used this to balance their ticket with regard to Afghanistan's three main ethnic communities. If no candidate had secured 50% of the votes, a run-off election would have been held. This was Afghanistan's first direct election. In 1965 and 1969, there were legislative polls, but those elections were indirect.
The favourite throughout was interim president Hamid Karzai
. Karzai ran as an independent, though he had the backing of several political parties, including Afghan Mellat, a social democratic party.
Initially, General Abdul Rashid Dostum
, a warlord
that led the National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan and then became a member of the Afghan National Army
in Karzai's first interim government, was expected to be Karzai's main challenger, but it soon became clear that his popularity was limited.
Yunus Qanuni
, who served in several prominent positions in the interim government, instead emerged as the focus of opposition to Karzai. Qanuni, a leading member of the Northern Alliance
, had the support of Mohammed Fahim
, an interim vice-president who was dropped from the Karzai ticket during the campaign. Qanuni claimed to represent the legacy of Ahmad Shah Massoud, as did several other candidates (including Massoud's brother, one of Karzai's vice-presidential candidates).
Also running was Mohammed Mohaqiq. He was a leader of the Islamic Unity Party of Afghanistan, a minister under Burhanuddin Rabbani
and Karzai, and had been a strong ally of Dostum. Mohaqiq criticised Karzai as a weak leader and pledged to unite conflicting factions and end the drugs trade. He faced widespread accusations that he committed war crime
s during the fight against the Soviet
occupation, subsequent internecine conflict within the Mujahedin, and later, against the Taliban.
The youngest candidate was 41-year old Abdul Hafiz Mansoor
. He was a member of the Northern Alliance and claimant to the legacy of Massoud. A journalist and former Minister for Information and Culture, Mansoor accused Karzai of trying to form an elected dictatorship.
The main candidate of the religious right was Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai
, leader of the exiled government in Pakistan
during the Soviet occupation. Ahmadzai formerly led a radical Islamist group which was active in the Mujahedin, and later in both the Taleban and Al-Qaida, but has since disavowed any links with them.
Hamyon Shah Aasifi represented monarchist groups, although the former King, Mohammed Zahir Shah
, has renounced his claims to be head of state.
Abdul Satar Sirat
held several ministerial positions in the early 1970s. Sirat later served as envoy for the exiled King and was initially voted leader of the interim government but stepped aside in favour Karzai.
Massouda Jalal
, a medical doctor, was the only female candidate, although two women were nominated for vice-president (Nelab Mobarez running with Aasifi and Safiqa Habibi running with Dostum).
Several candidates publicly supported women's rights, including Karzai, Wakil Mangal and, most prominently, the former police colonel Abdul Hasib Aarian. 72-year-old Abdul Hadi Khalilzai, the oldest candidate and a former teacher and religious lawyer, claimed to support women's rights "according to the Constitution, accepted Afghan tradition and the holy religion of Islam".
Latif Pedram
, a journalist and poet, and Mohammed Ibrahim Rashid were strong advocates for the rights of Afghan refugees. Sayed Ishaq Gailani
, a Muslim intellectual who fought against the Soviet occupation, stood to represent the Sufi Muslim minority. All candidates claimed to be able to build bridges between Afghanistan's various communities and factions. Ghulam Farooq Nejrabi, a paediatric physician and medical lecturer who called for an end to religious, ethnic and sexual discrimination, even claimed he could build bridges with the Taleban. Mahfuz Nedahi, who had served as Minister of Mines and Industry in the interim government, accused the other candidates of running on tribal or party lines and failing to offer a true programme of national unity, while Sayed Abdul Hadi Dabir, an amateur boxer and former fighter in the Mujahedin, criticised tribal nepotism in government appointments and called for a national Ulema
to be formed as part of the elected parliament.
In Afghanistan, polling centres opened at 6 AM or 7 AM in different areas, and were set to close at 4 PM. However, on election day, voting time was officially extended by two hours, but several polling centres closed on time before news of this announcement reached them.
Very significantly, over two million people voted among refugee
communities in Iran and Pakistan, thanks to an operation conducted by the International Organization for Migration
(IOM) through a remarkable logistic effort. In Peshawar
, Pakistan
, under the leadership of Stuart Poucher
, a small team from IOM managed in less than two months to hire over 400 electoral officers, and over 6,000 polling officials, to conduct voter education for over 800,000 refugees, over half of whom voted.
All the candidates except Karzai, Gailani and Aarian, publicly declared that they were boycotting the ballot and would ignore the results— effectively uniting Karzai's disparate opponents. Two major opposition candidates, the Hazara leader Mohammed Mohaqeq and the Uzbek strongman General Abdul Rashid Dostum
, soon declared they had not joined the boycott.
Significant fraud occurred in the 2004 presidential election, even though it did not attract the level of international attention as the fraud in the 2009 presidential election
.
On election day there were several claims that the ink used to mark voters could be easily removed and that multiple voting had resulted, as well as isolated reports of intimidation and campaigning at the polling centres.
Journalist Christian Parenti
claimed that many people in Afghanistan were in possession of three or four photographic ID cards. He himself, not an Afghan citizen, could have easily voted. "One of the parties gave me two valid voting cards," he said "that I could add my photograph to and I could have voted if I wanted to." Other problems reported by Parenti included lack of pens in polling places, not having enough ballots, and differences in closing times of voting stations.
The documentary film "God's Open Hand" by Ghost Studios exposes voter fraud. However, the film mainly focuses on the hopes and dreams of the Afghan people on their first ever Presidential elections.
In September 2009, Hamid Karzai, downplaying the significance of the fraud in the 2009 presidential election
, said "there was fraud in 2004" as well.
On September 3, 2009, when envoys from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, and other Western nations met in Paris to discuss the recent 2009 Afghan election, U.N. Special Representative in Afghanistan Kai Eide
said that the 2009 Afghan presidential election
, widely characterized by rampant fraud and intimidation, "was a better election than five years ago."
moving to dominate the region. During the election process, five Afghan National Army
soldiers died in skirmishes and due to landmines
. 15 staff of the Joint Electoral Management Body were killed and a further 46 injured in various attacks.
2 International sub-contractors working in Nuristan in support of the electoral process were also killed.
Notes:
President of Afghanistan
Afghanistan has only been a republic between 1973 and 1992 and from 2001 onwards. Before 1973, it was a monarchy that was governed by a variety of kings, emirs or shahs...
was held on October 9, 2004. Hamid Karzai
Hamid Karzai
Hamid Karzai, GCMG is the 12th and current President of Afghanistan, taking office on 7 December 2004. He became a dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001...
won the election with 55.4% of the votes and three times more votes than any other candidate. Twelve candidates received less than 1% of the vote. It is estimated that more than three-quarters of Afghanistan's nearly 12 million registered voters cast ballots. The election was overseen by the Joint Electoral Management Body, vice-chaired by Zakim Shah
Zakim Shah (Afghan election official)
Zakim Shah was the chairman or director of Afghanistan'sJoint Election Management Board for the Afghan Presidential elections in 2004, and for the elections to the two houses of Afghanistan's National Legislature, the Wolesi Jirga, and Meshrano Jirga, in 2005....
and American diplomat Ray Kennedy.
After some accusations of fraud circulated on the day of the election, at least fifteen candidates declared that they were boycotting the ballot, but the boycott dissolved when the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
announced it would set up a three-person independent panel to investigate the charges of irregularities. The panel included a former Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
diplomat
Diplomat
A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...
, a Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
electoral expert, and the third member was later named by the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
.
The date was originally set for July 5, 2004. The elections were twice postponed, first until September, and then until October. Candidates for president also nominated two vice-presidential candidates. Some candidates used this to balance their ticket with regard to Afghanistan's three main ethnic communities. If no candidate had secured 50% of the votes, a run-off election would have been held. This was Afghanistan's first direct election. In 1965 and 1969, there were legislative polls, but those elections were indirect.
Candidates and issues
Twenty-three candidates put their name forward for presidency, but five of them dropped out of the running by the time campaigning began.The favourite throughout was interim president Hamid Karzai
Hamid Karzai
Hamid Karzai, GCMG is the 12th and current President of Afghanistan, taking office on 7 December 2004. He became a dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001...
. Karzai ran as an independent, though he had the backing of several political parties, including Afghan Mellat, a social democratic party.
Initially, General Abdul Rashid Dostum
Abdul Rashid Dostum
Abdul Rashid Dostum is a former pro-Soviet fighter during the Soviet war in Afghanistan and is considered by many to be the leader of Afghanistan's Uzbek community and the party Junbish-e Milli-yi Islami-yi Afghanistan...
, a warlord
Warlord
A warlord is a person with power who has both military and civil control over a subnational area due to armed forces loyal to the warlord and not to a central authority. The term can also mean one who espouses the ideal that war is necessary, and has the means and authority to engage in war...
that led the National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan and then became a member of the Afghan National Army
Afghan National Army
The Afghan National Army is a service branch of the military of Afghanistan, which is currently trained by the coalition forces to ultimately take the role in land-based military operations in Afghanistan. , the Afghan National Army is divided into seven regional Corps. The strength of the Afghan...
in Karzai's first interim government, was expected to be Karzai's main challenger, but it soon became clear that his popularity was limited.
Yunus Qanuni
Yunus Qanuni
Yunus Qanuni is a politician in Afghanistan. An ethnic Tajik from the Panjshir Valley in Afghanistan, Qanuni is the leader of the Afghanistan e Naween political party and former Speaker of the House of the People .-Pre Election...
, who served in several prominent positions in the interim government, instead emerged as the focus of opposition to Karzai. Qanuni, a leading member of the Northern Alliance
United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan
The United Islamic Front , known in the West and Pakistan as the Northern Alliance, was a military-political umbrella organization created by the Islamic State of Afghanistan in 1996 under the leadership of Defense Minister Ahmad Shah Massoud...
, had the support of Mohammed Fahim
Mohammed Fahim
Mohammad Qasim Fahim is an Afghan military commander, politician and the First Vice President since November 2009. He was the Defense Minister of the Afghan Transitional Administration, beginning in 2002 and also served as Vice President from June 2002 to December 2004...
, an interim vice-president who was dropped from the Karzai ticket during the campaign. Qanuni claimed to represent the legacy of Ahmad Shah Massoud, as did several other candidates (including Massoud's brother, one of Karzai's vice-presidential candidates).
Also running was Mohammed Mohaqiq. He was a leader of the Islamic Unity Party of Afghanistan, a minister under Burhanuddin Rabbani
Burhanuddin Rabbani
Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani was President of the Islamic State of Afghanistan from 1992 to 1996. After the Taliban government was toppled during Operation Enduring Freedom, Rabbani returned to Kabul and served as a temporary President from November to December 20, 2001, when Hamid Karzai was...
and Karzai, and had been a strong ally of Dostum. Mohaqiq criticised Karzai as a weak leader and pledged to unite conflicting factions and end the drugs trade. He faced widespread accusations that he committed war crime
War crime
War crimes are serious violations of the laws applicable in armed conflict giving rise to individual criminal responsibility...
s during the fight against the Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
occupation, subsequent internecine conflict within the Mujahedin, and later, against the Taliban.
The youngest candidate was 41-year old Abdul Hafiz Mansoor
Abdul Hafiz Mansoor
Abdul Hafiz Mansoor was born in 1963 in the Panjsher Valley of Afghanistan. He is a member of the Jamiat-e Islami. After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Mansoor served as the first director of state radio and television in Afghanistan...
. He was a member of the Northern Alliance and claimant to the legacy of Massoud. A journalist and former Minister for Information and Culture, Mansoor accused Karzai of trying to form an elected dictatorship.
The main candidate of the religious right was Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai
Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai
Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai is an Afghan politician. He served as the prime minister of Afghanistan from 1995 to 1996. He is an ethnic Pashtun from the Ahmadzai sub-tribe.-Biography:...
, leader of the exiled government in Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
during the Soviet occupation. Ahmadzai formerly led a radical Islamist group which was active in the Mujahedin, and later in both the Taleban and Al-Qaida, but has since disavowed any links with them.
Hamyon Shah Aasifi represented monarchist groups, although the former King, Mohammed Zahir Shah
Mohammed Zahir Shah
Mohammed Zahir Shah was the last King of Afghanistan, reigning for four decades, from 1933 until he was ousted by a coup in 1973...
, has renounced his claims to be head of state.
Abdul Satar Sirat
Abdul Satar Sirat
Abdul Satar Sirat is a doctor and former Afghan Justice Minister and a representative of the Rome Group during the Bonn talks in 2001...
held several ministerial positions in the early 1970s. Sirat later served as envoy for the exiled King and was initially voted leader of the interim government but stepped aside in favour Karzai.
Massouda Jalal
Massouda Jalal
Massouda Jalal is a politician in Afghanistan, who served as Minister of Women's Affairs from October 2004 to July 2006. She was also the only woman candidate in theAfghan presidential election, 2004...
, a medical doctor, was the only female candidate, although two women were nominated for vice-president (Nelab Mobarez running with Aasifi and Safiqa Habibi running with Dostum).
Several candidates publicly supported women's rights, including Karzai, Wakil Mangal and, most prominently, the former police colonel Abdul Hasib Aarian. 72-year-old Abdul Hadi Khalilzai, the oldest candidate and a former teacher and religious lawyer, claimed to support women's rights "according to the Constitution, accepted Afghan tradition and the holy religion of Islam".
Latif Pedram
Latif Pedram
Abdul Latīf Pedrām , Ph.D., is a politician and a Member of Parliament in Afghanistan. He emerged as a controversial figure in the press and political circles for campaigning for women's personal rights, a taboo subject in Afghanistan's culture...
, a journalist and poet, and Mohammed Ibrahim Rashid were strong advocates for the rights of Afghan refugees. Sayed Ishaq Gailani
Syed Ishay Ghalani
Sayed Ishaq Gailani is a national politician in Afghanistan. He is the founder and chairman of the National Solidarity Movement of Afghanistan. He was the first announced presidential candidate for the 2004 Afghan general election...
, a Muslim intellectual who fought against the Soviet occupation, stood to represent the Sufi Muslim minority. All candidates claimed to be able to build bridges between Afghanistan's various communities and factions. Ghulam Farooq Nejrabi, a paediatric physician and medical lecturer who called for an end to religious, ethnic and sexual discrimination, even claimed he could build bridges with the Taleban. Mahfuz Nedahi, who had served as Minister of Mines and Industry in the interim government, accused the other candidates of running on tribal or party lines and failing to offer a true programme of national unity, while Sayed Abdul Hadi Dabir, an amateur boxer and former fighter in the Mujahedin, criticised tribal nepotism in government appointments and called for a national Ulema
Ulema
Ulama , also spelt ulema, refers to the educated class of Muslim legal scholars engaged in the several fields of Islamic studies. They are best known as the arbiters of shari‘a law...
to be formed as part of the elected parliament.
Campaigning and voting
Ballots contained the names of candidates, accompanied by their photo and an icon of their choice. Where appropriate, the icon was the symbol of their political party. However, most candidates ran as independents regardless of their party affiliation, and selected generic icons to distinguish their candidacy. In order to avoid voting fraud, voters dipped their thumb in ink after they had cast their ballot.In Afghanistan, polling centres opened at 6 AM or 7 AM in different areas, and were set to close at 4 PM. However, on election day, voting time was officially extended by two hours, but several polling centres closed on time before news of this announcement reached them.
Very significantly, over two million people voted among refugee
Refugee
A refugee is a person who outside her country of origin or habitual residence because she has suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because she is a member of a persecuted 'social group'. Such a person may be referred to as an 'asylum seeker' until...
communities in Iran and Pakistan, thanks to an operation conducted by the International Organization for Migration
International Organization for Migration
The International Organization for Migration is an intergovernmental organization. It was initially established in 1951 as the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration to help resettle people displaced by World War II....
(IOM) through a remarkable logistic effort. In Peshawar
Peshawar
Peshawar is the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the administrative center and central economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan....
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, under the leadership of Stuart Poucher
Stuart Poucher
Stuart Poucher, a retired British colonel, is today an international electoral expert. He served in numerous electoral missions in developing countries, usually in the context of United Nations or European Union operations....
, a small team from IOM managed in less than two months to hire over 400 electoral officers, and over 6,000 polling officials, to conduct voter education for over 800,000 refugees, over half of whom voted.
Controversies
During the campaign there were some rumours that the election would be decided by negotiation, as candidates bargained for promises of political position under Karzai or another candidate in return for dropping out of the race. There were rumours in September that Sirat and Mohaqiq had formed a pact with Qanuni, whilst Gailani and Aarian declared their support for Karzai on the last day of campaigning, October 6.All the candidates except Karzai, Gailani and Aarian, publicly declared that they were boycotting the ballot and would ignore the results— effectively uniting Karzai's disparate opponents. Two major opposition candidates, the Hazara leader Mohammed Mohaqeq and the Uzbek strongman General Abdul Rashid Dostum
Abdul Rashid Dostum
Abdul Rashid Dostum is a former pro-Soviet fighter during the Soviet war in Afghanistan and is considered by many to be the leader of Afghanistan's Uzbek community and the party Junbish-e Milli-yi Islami-yi Afghanistan...
, soon declared they had not joined the boycott.
Election fraud
Afghan presidential election, 2009
The 2009 presidential election in Afghanistan was characterized by lack of security, low voter turnout and widespread ballot stuffing, intimidation, and other electoral fraud....
.
On election day there were several claims that the ink used to mark voters could be easily removed and that multiple voting had resulted, as well as isolated reports of intimidation and campaigning at the polling centres.
Journalist Christian Parenti
Christian Parenti
Christian Parenti is an American investigative journalist and author. His books include: Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis , a survey of the rise of the prison industrial complex from the Nixon through Reagan Eras and into the present; The Soft Cage: Surveillance in America...
claimed that many people in Afghanistan were in possession of three or four photographic ID cards. He himself, not an Afghan citizen, could have easily voted. "One of the parties gave me two valid voting cards," he said "that I could add my photograph to and I could have voted if I wanted to." Other problems reported by Parenti included lack of pens in polling places, not having enough ballots, and differences in closing times of voting stations.
The documentary film "God's Open Hand" by Ghost Studios exposes voter fraud. However, the film mainly focuses on the hopes and dreams of the Afghan people on their first ever Presidential elections.
In September 2009, Hamid Karzai, downplaying the significance of the fraud in the 2009 presidential election
Afghan presidential election, 2009
The 2009 presidential election in Afghanistan was characterized by lack of security, low voter turnout and widespread ballot stuffing, intimidation, and other electoral fraud....
, said "there was fraud in 2004" as well.
On September 3, 2009, when envoys from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, and other Western nations met in Paris to discuss the recent 2009 Afghan election, U.N. Special Representative in Afghanistan Kai Eide
Kai Eide
Kai Aage Eide is a Norwegian diplomat. He was appointed the United Nations Special Representative to Afghanistan and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan on 7 March 2008, a position he held until March 2010 when Staffan de Mistura took over.Eide has previously served as...
said that the 2009 Afghan presidential election
Afghan presidential election, 2009
The 2009 presidential election in Afghanistan was characterized by lack of security, low voter turnout and widespread ballot stuffing, intimidation, and other electoral fraud....
, widely characterized by rampant fraud and intimidation, "was a better election than five years ago."
Violence
Rebels loyal to the former Taliban leadership had vowed to disrupt the election, accusing the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
moving to dominate the region. During the election process, five Afghan National Army
Afghan National Army
The Afghan National Army is a service branch of the military of Afghanistan, which is currently trained by the coalition forces to ultimately take the role in land-based military operations in Afghanistan. , the Afghan National Army is divided into seven regional Corps. The strength of the Afghan...
soldiers died in skirmishes and due to landmines
Land mine
A land mine is usually a weight-triggered explosive device which is intended to damage a target—either human or inanimate—by means of a blast and/or fragment impact....
. 15 staff of the Joint Electoral Management Body were killed and a further 46 injured in various attacks.
2 International sub-contractors working in Nuristan in support of the electoral process were also killed.
Results
- Invalid votes accounted for 1.3% of total votes.
- Several candidates were listed on the ballot as independents despite recognised affiliation to political parties or groups (indicated in brackets).
- Candidates marked with an asterisk endorsed Hamid Karzai on 6 October, the last day of campaigning; their names remain on the ballot.
- There was one female candidate (Massouda Jalal).
- Ballots were all counted manually.
- 70% of registered voters voted.
External links
- BBC coverage, including a picture of the ballot form
- Coverage of last-minute campaigning
- Profile of Afghan political situation
- A wide collection of articles on the election
- Official site of election monitoring organisation, with full list of candidates including photos and icons
- Complete list and biographies of candidates
- A Democracy Is Born: An Insider's Account of the Battle Against Terrorism in Afghanistan