Summary
THE reports came in all day. There were rockets landing in provincial capitals, near polling stations and in people's courtyards. Anti-tamper measures to protect yesterday's parliamentary election in Afghanistan were failing almost as soon as the ballot began; indelible ink to mark voters' fingers, preventing them voting twice, was all too easy to wash off. The Taliban had blocked roads to polling centres; they had bombed politicians and voters. No-one wanted to vote anyway. And the number of dead went up and up.
Amid the bloodshed, cheating and disenchantment with democracy, there was sheer incomprehension among some at the need for elections so soon after the last disastrous batch of presidential and provincial ballots in 2009. Yet, despite all this, yesterday's election still mattered in the eyes of many ordinary Afghans, the Taliban and international community.See the full content of this document
Extract
Afghanistan's Bloody Ballot Boxes
Certainly it provided the opportunity for all sides to claim the ballot vindicated their agenda. The Taliban say they successfully sabotaged the ballot; the international community and Afghan security forces claim that, on the contrary, violence was less problematic than expected; Afghan government officials argue that their nation has taken another step down the road to fully fledged democracy.
What few have pointed out is that only in the weeks ahead, as the full scale of whatev...See the full content of this document
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