Press coverage of Afghanistan’s recent election was largely positive: “the successful Afghan parliamentary elections” has become a stock phrase in recent commentaries on Central Asian politics and the American-led war on terrorism. Yet some in Afghanistan—both expatriates and Afghan nationals—take a more ambivalent view. They point out that despite provisions in the Electoral Law stating that no individual who was a “commander or member of an illegal armed group” would be allowed to run for office, numerous such individuals found their way onto the candidate lists and into the parliament. Pandering to anti-internationalist sentiment among Afghans, the local press ran numerous editorials accusing the UN-backed election administration of sitting on its hands while the warlords waltzed into parliament.

There seems a temptation to paint the election with too broad a brush. Perhaps it is just the perennial time constraints of the media, but few popular commentators have expressed an interest in the subtleties of how Afghanistan ’s election and disarmament processes became entangled, or what specific lessons policy makers should draw from them.

More than They Bargained For

The task of determining which candidates had links to illegal armed groups fell to the Electoral Complaints Commission, a joint Afghan-UN institution mandated to adjudicate all formal allegations of violations of the Electoral Law. Many of the complaints it received bore little or no relevance to the election itself, alleging theft, murder, and war crimes that took place years or even decades ago. It was evident that the years without a functioning government or judicial system had left many Afghans hungry for justice, and they took the Complaints Commission as an opportunity to at last file their grievances.

The Complaints Commission was obliged to investigate each of these thousands of complaints pouring in from all over the country, regardless of their origin or motivation. However, with only 45 staff in Kabul , the commission did not have the capacity to investigate each complaint on its own. To lighten the load, it outsourced certain technical determinations to Afghan national institutions. It relied on the Ministry of the Interior, for instance, for information on criminal records. In determining links to illegal armed groups, the Complaints Commission relied on a joint Afghan-international body called the Joint Secretariat of the Disarmament and Reintegration Commission, composed of representatives from several Afghan government security offices, as well as NATO and Coalition leaders. Together, the Complaints Commission and the Disarmament Commission would determine whether or not to disqualify warlords from the candidate lists. But while the Complaints Commission’s priority was upholding the Electoral Law and facilitating a fair election operation, the Disarmament Commission’s priority was disarming as many warlords as possible.

A Variable Course

At the beginning of July 2005, the Complaints Commission initially announced that 216 applicants would be excluded from the candidate lists for having links to illegal armed groups. Yet after just two weeks of reviewing responses from these 216 applicants, the Complaints Commission announced that there would be only 11 final exclusions on these grounds. Then in September—just weeks before the election itself—the Disarmament Commission advised the Complaints Commission to disqualify a further 21 candidates already listed on the ballots. Why so many reversals?

First, there was legitimate concern about the way disqualifications could affect the security of the elections. Disqualifying a large number of armed individuals in July would have taken away a major incentive—the chance to get elected to the parliament—for them to support a peaceful election. In fact, early disqualification would have given armed candidates an incentive to attack or otherwise undermine election operations, since the provincial elections threatened their positions in local power structures. Second, the Disarmament Commission wanted to disarm as many warlords as possible and rightly saw that the election provided an opportunity to further its own work. In cases where the Disarmament Commission felt it could make more progress with a warlord if it had more time, retaining the threat of disqualification was a powerful weapon in continuing negotiations. Simply cutting warlords off in July would have taken away this weapon while it still might be used.

But while reducing the number of disqualifications had advantages for security and disarmament issues, it presented significant problems for the elections. The candidate lists needed to be finalized in July in order for all 40 million ballots to be printed and distributed in August for use in September. Written warnings about the September disqualifications were posted outside of polling stations, but given the low literacy rate in Afghanistan, many Afghans undoubtedly wasted their votes on these disqualified candidates (exact numbers aren’t available because votes for disqualified candidates were not counted). In addition, the fluctuating numbers of disqualifications undermined the public credibility of the candidate vetting process and the election administration as a whole.

Lessons Learned

As noted by the European Union’s monitoring mission, the simplest solution to some of these issues would have been to write the Electoral Law in a way that prevented the Complaints Commission from disqualifying candidates after the printing of ballots. This would have precluded the last minute confusions and conflict with the disarmament process.

Even with a tighter Electoral Law, though, the Complaints Commission was not given enough time or staff to investigate the thousands of complaints it received. It was the lack of resources, in fact, that led the Complaints Commission to rely on the advice of outside bodies like the Disarmament Commission.

The Complaints Commission’s lack of investigative resources was compounded by the overwhelming response of the Afghan public, which attempted to use the complaints process to resolve long-standing non-electoral disputes. Like many societies pulling out of an extended period of conflict, Afghanistan has a great need to address the many war crimes and other misdeeds committed in the absence of an effective, stable government or a functioning court system. For better or for worse, the architects of Afghanistan ’s reconstruction decided to put off any serious transitional justice project until after the establishment of democratic institutions. Whatever the benefits to Afghanistan ’s overall long-term political development, it came at the cost of more effective candidate vetting and complaints processes in the parliamentary elections.

Given the security risks and the logistical challenge, Afghanistan ’s elections were indeed an outstanding success. On the other hand, the parliament’s image has been tarnished by an association with warlords and both the Afghan government and the international community have lost credibility regarding their commitment to transitional justice and disarmament. This may have contributed to the low voter turnout in the last election—just barely over 50 percent—and bodes ill for the future of Afghan attitudes towards the government.

What effect the reputed warlords will have on the parliament itself remains to be seen. Hopefully, they will exert a stabilizing influence on the provinces, which have often been only loosely connected to the central government. On the other hand, they are unlikely to support a rigorous transitional justice program with appropriate funding or legislation.

Afghanistan watchers won’t have to wait long to find out, though. The UN’s human rights program is preparing a conference to plan transitional justice programs—we’ll soon see how far their proposals get.

Joshua Wright, former spokesman of the Electoral Complaints Commission in Kabul, has worked for international election administrations in Kosovo and Afghanistan.