Letter from an Afghan in
Diaspora,
by Kanishka Nawabi
I am totally overwhelmed to hear the cheering Afghans
turned today’s election to a national day of
celebration and joy. From Kandahar where people queued
in the polling stations from five in the morning to Iran
where thousands of women stood side-by-side with Afghan
men, all voted for their choice of leadership. The day
was blessed by the snow from Bamyan to rain in the east.
Phoning many friends in Afghanistan, they informed me of
the hope, joy and celebration in this great national
day. Fortunately there wasn’t any news of intimidation
by any forces whatsoever.
After three decades of tyranny, today is a turning point
in Afghans empowerment in the political and military
scenes of their country. Today it is Afghans who decide
their leaders, not their leaders deciding their faith.
It was really embracing however, that in such a day of
national pride almost 14 candidates announced their
opposition to the election process due to some technical
problems i.e. apparently a problem with the ink used to
mark voters thumb. It has to be stressed that UN spent
almost 4.5 million dollars for purchasing this substance
and neither Karzai nor the Afghan Officials or any other
candidate has anything to do with either purchase or use
of this substance.
I believe such claims are baseless on different
accounts. First of all the election process is not an
event organized by either Karzai or the interim
authority, but it is the UN and the international
community who fund organize and conduct this process.
Secondly, the claim that voters tap on this technical
problem and re-voted in different centres is very
unclear. No one knows whether the bogus voters were pro
Karzi or the rest. I believe the whole shambles by these
opposing candidates is yet another delaying techniques
to buy time and organize yet another conspiracy to
destabilize Afghanistan and benefit from the process, as
many of them did in the last three decades.
Finally the legitimacy of the whole Afghan Election is
neither the responsibility of the Karzai, nor the Afghan
government or other candidates, but the United Nation
and the International Community. It is the whole 75,000
national, regional and international observers to decide
the legitimacy of the election, not women or men
presidential candidates.
I also believe that even if it is proven that a couple
of hundred or a thousand voters were involved in this
fraudulent process, we have to remind ourselves that
another 10 million plus have legitimately taken part in
a democratic process after three long and agonizing
decades of misery and do not deserve to be told that
their votes have gone to ‘Wish
Bins’ of some of Presidential Candidates.
I plead to these candidates to take into account the
level of discipline, pride and joy Afghans observed in
this process. Whether politically motivated or other
reasons, as Afghan leaders, these candidates need not to
ruin Afghans dreams once more.
However, these leaders need to be reminded that Afghans
will not let this national day of pride and joy turn to
national day of shame.
Long Live Afghanistan |