Results from a cell phone poll have been released.
"Undecided" is in the lead, at 29%.
The striking ticket of technocrat Ashraf Ghani, with northern warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, comes in second at 27%.
The striking ticket of the Panjshiri technocrat Abdullah Abdullah, the Hezb-i-Islami affiliated Mohammad Khan, and Hazara warlord Mohammad Mohaqiq, is a close third at 25%.
The Hamid Karzai backed technocrat Zalmay Rasoul, usually discussed as a frontrunner, is doing poorly at 8%.
"None of them" is at 7%.
Islamic extremist Abdul Rab Rassoul Sayyaf, and populist dude Gul Agha Sherzai, are doing poorly.
Matthew Aikins has a rundown of the results. Election polling in the past has been quite accurate. What a vote actually means, in an Afghan election, is pretty hard to say, though.
Afghanistan's electoral system is so badly hampered by fraud, insecurity, and institutional weakness that there is no effective way of knowing what the 'true' vote is—that is, how many voters individually cast their ballot. Indeed, we don't even know how many voters there are, as there is no recent census or voter rolls. Estimates range from 10 to 12 million, while some 21 million legal voter cards have been issued.
What's more, the notion of the only legitimate ballot being one cast by an individual voter is itself problematic. As past elections have shown, Afghan voters, especially in rural areas, are mobilised through networks of patronage and solidarity. An entire village might decide how to vote, after its elders have negotiated with a candidate—and this might mean casting their women's votes en masse.
Moreover, given the geographic distribution of insecurity in the country's south and southeast, which is strongly correlated with fraud, rigorously disqualifying fraudulent votes might have the effect of disenfranchising largely Pashtun areas, which could in turn jeopardise Afghanistan's fragile political order.
What the Polls Tell Us About the Afghan Presidential Election
Anand Gopal visits Wardak province, and reports on election security preparations. Election security provider "Raqib" (a pseudonym) is in the "undecided" camp about where the votes from his polling places will go.
In Wardak, the province southwest of Kabul where Raqib heads a militia, most districts are under Taliban control. Near the turnoff on the highway to Chak, there is a renovated, single-story schoolhouse that will serve as the main polling center for the area; it sits on territory controlled by Raqib’s forces. “These few kilometres of highway are mine. And that side, too,” he said, pointing to roadside scrubland. “Everything else”—he motioned toward mud villages dotting the nearby foothills—“is Taliban.”
No one from those villages will venture to the polling center on Election Day, but Raqib is shopping his services to the major candidates to “secure” the area—meaning his men will control access to the polling sites, allowing only paid campaign agents inside. In the previous two elections, in 2004 and 2009, campaign workers played an instrumental role in stuffing ballot boxes on behalf of their candidates.
“I’ve seen a couple of the big candidates, and they’re offering good money,” Raqib said, citing one offer of about five thousand dollars. He hasn’t yet decided whom to work with, but he believes the experience will be similar to the parliamentary polls held in 2010. Back then, I was reporting in Wardak, and watched as Raqib detained the agents of rival candidates, while allowing those of his backers to stuff ballots unmolested.
Rigging the Afghan Vote
Down in Kandahar,
election security provider Abdul Raziq can be counted on to support Zalmay Rassoul.
The head of the Kandahar police force is Abdul Raziq, a U.S. ally with a grisly human-rights record, who is also a staunch Karzai supporter. “The same thing will happen this time around,” Baretz told me. “You won’t see a single voter in Shorawak.” Through the police, Raziq controls the ballot-distribution system in Kandahar, and in many rural polling sites his force, rather than election authorities, will collect the ballots. This means, Baretz predicted, that Zalmay Rassoul will win Kandahar.
It’s too soon to say whether Rassoul will be able to leverage Karzai’s patronage networks throughout the country—or if, as in Wardak, those networks have become splintered beyond recognition, leaving a free market of competing power brokers.
Rigging the Afghan Vote
Hamid Shalizi and Jessica Donati have another look at Kandahar election politics. If one side wins, some other side threatens war.
Growing violence in the southern province of Kandahar ahead of Afghanistan's presidential election next week highlights a rift between Pashtun tribes that could tip the country back into civil war.
The fate of Kandahar, birthplace of the Taliban insurgency, is crucial. Some Afghans fear a loss in the vote for Zalmai Rassoul, a candidate close to President Hamid Karzai, could push Kandahar's powerful Pashtun tribes into rejecting rule from Kabul, some 500 km (300 miles) away. Others fear the same outcome if he wins.
Kandahar, cradle of Afghan insurgency, torn by tribal rivalry ahead of vote
Rob Crilly uses Sayyaf to explain how minor candidates will still be important in the election power brokering.
As Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a veteran of the jihad against Soviet occupation and a hardline Islamist once close to al-Qaeda, steps to the microphone through a phalanx of armed guard the crowd of 5000 takes up a familiar cry.
One man raises his fist and shouts: "Death to America, death to England."
Hundreds of hands are thrust into the air as the response echoes around the rally in Parwan province, all captured on video. "Death, death, death," they shout.
Sayyaf is the man who invited Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan and was mentor to the mastermind who planned 9/11.
Yet 12 years after international troops forced the Taliban from Kabul and after billions of dollars has been delivered in aid, he is a contender for president and one of a handful of warlords well-placed to act as kingmakers.
Warlords to decide outcome of Afghan election
A while back, Reza Kazemi had a very interesting look at electioneering among some Herat youth groups.
It was one afternoon, unusually bright and sunny in this year’s winter in Herat, when word came from a shahrak (usually translated as ‘township’, these are newish settlements usually on the outskirts of a city, although this particular one is some 20 years old with a population of around 8,000 people) that the only provincial council candidate from the shahrak had invited what he called the cultured and intellectual youth (jawanan-e farhangi wa roshanfekr) to a pre-election event at his home. “We’re gonna eat shurwa-ye gusht-e gusfand,” one of the invited youth blurted out. (1) Different young people organised around affiliations to a few cultural centres in the township discussed their plans before heading to the candidate’s house in the evening.
The young people known to the author spoke at the meeting about their disillusionment.
Money, Jobs and Mutton Soup: Pre-election discourses in a Herat township
It's a bit of an antidote to all the warlord focus.
The election will be held this Saturday. A runoff round is very likely.