ABSTRACT
One of the first steps in most regime transitions following the downfall of an autocrat is to hold direct multi-party elections. It is hoped that this process will endow the new regime with legitimacy at home and abroad, strengthening its authority to rebuild fragile states and unify deeply divided societies. Elections are now a universal practice in peace-building and state-building missions, as the international community seeks to channel aid and assistance through a legitimate government. Nevertheless, electoral transitions remain fraught with danger. Some contests succeed by producing popular regimes which gradually strengthen human rights and democratic institutions, including inclusive parliaments, independent courts and stable states. Yet contentious elections can also feed social conflict and breed discontent. Moreover, many autocracies have learnt to use a series of manipulated and fraudulent elections to maintain their grip on power, containing and suppressing popular discontent behind a veneer of legitimate contests. The most severe risks of contests failing to transition towards democracy are commonly thought to arise when attempting to organise elections under a wide range of challenging conditions, including in poor and illiterate societies with scattered rural populations that lack access to modern communications and transportation, in deeply divided states emerging from years of conflict and in countries with a long legacy of authoritarian rule and little, if any, experience of democratic practices. If transitional elections succeed, they do not, by themselves, guarantee further progress towards developing stable democratic states. Nevertheless, if elections fail, for whatever reason, then prospects for a sustainable process of democratisation fade. In this regard, they are an essential first step in any transition towards democracy despite the fact that some contests stumble and fall coming out of the gate. The challenges associated with attempting to hold popular contests under very difficult circumstances are perhaps best illustrated by contemporary events in Afghanistan. Successive elections for the presidency, Wolesi Jirga, and provincial councils have been held in this country since 2004. This is despite a traditional political culture with tribal allegiances and rival forms of regional authority and elite patronage rooted in semi-feudalism; poor communications and transportation infrastructure over a vast territory; low levels of literacy and
schooling (the 2013 UNDP Human Development Index ranked Afghanistan 175th out of 186 countries worldwide, and second from the bottom in terms of the Gender Inequality Index); a murky politics characterised by endemic corruption and violence; and weakly institutionalised political parties, among peoples who have lived under violent conflict for decades. In 2009, widespread complaints about ballot stuffing led the Independent Election Commission to organise a complete recount. The second round of the 2014 presidential elections saw more than 150 reported incidents of violence on polling day. In the aftermath, the leading presidential contender, Abdullah Abdullah, demanded that the Commission cease the count mid-way through due to alleged irregularities – an event followed by mass protests, the resignation of the chief commissioner and delays in announcing the results. The results of the audit suggest that perhaps as many as two million fraudulent votes were cast out of eight million in total. In the end, a brokered power-sharing agreement resolved the outcome but this also violated the spirit of the election. A detailed study of the Afghan experience over successive elections since 2004 concluded that the process strengthened the power of ruling elites but did little to develop representative democracy.1
