ABSTRACT
This chapter offers some background to Afghanistan's electoral experiences. It explores the appropriateness of democratic choice, and some of its limitations. The chapter outlines the constitutional and organisational framework for elections. Afghanistan's electoral history sits in a context defined by developments in both the wider world of democracy promotion and electoral assistance, and in Afghanistan itself. Within the framework of its 2004 Constitution, Afghanistan succeeded in holding a presidential election on 9 October 2004 and elections for the Wolesi Jirga and for Provincial Councils on 18 September 2005. The scale of fraud that surfaced in 2009 had no precedents even in Afghanistan's chequered history. The 2009 elections were truly a disaster waiting to happen, and electoral theft was plainly in the offing. The 2014 presidential election was virgin territory for Afghanistan. Because of the presidential term limit in article 62 of the Afghan Constitution, Hamed Karzai could not be a candidate, and therefore no candidate enjoyed the advantage of incumbency.
