Afghanistan's Legitimacy Crisis

When polling stations closed in Afghanistan on 20 August 2009, incumbent President Hamid Karzai and the western allies were quick to hail the elections a success. The largely peaceful vote was praised as victory against the Taliban, and, as NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen put it, “a testimony to the determination of the Afghan people to build democracy.”

Yet within a day of the elections, reports from observers based outside the major urban centers started detailing accounts of electoral fraud. It quickly became clear that the relatively fair elections that many international observers like ourselves witnessed in the calm of Kabul were the exception rather than the rule.

The EU's election-monitoring commission estimates that 1.5 million ballots are "suspicious," among them 1.1 million of the three million President Karzai received. Preliminary election results showing Karzai winning with almost 55 percent of the vote threaten to question the veracity of the entire election effort. A flawed final election outcome could turn the government’s existing legitimacy deficit into an existential crisis, jeopardizing the entire international effort to stabilize and rebuild Afghanistan. If the Afghan people’s trust in the political system is not restored, the Taliban could emerge as the election’s true winner.

In order to understand Afghanistan’s looming crisis, it is helpful to recall some basic assumptions about the concept of legitimacy. A government may be called legitimate when there is popular belief in its right to rule. In democratic countries, this belief is nourished by the sources Abraham Lincoln famously called government of the people, by the people, for the people.

Political institutions are regarded as legitimate if they reflect the will of the people, usually expressed through elections. If a vote follows broadly accepted norms and procedures and gives citizens the opportunity to voice their preferences, then the winner is likely to be regarded as legitimate.

In addition, state leaders can boost their legitimacy by providing public services. The rule of a government that improves average citizen wellbeing is likely to be obeyed. Unfortunately, Afghanistan has not delivered largely increased social wellbeing or personal security to the majority of its citizens. This lackluster performance - combined with increasing evidence of blatant electoral manipulation committed by supporters of President Karzai - is rapidly leading to a crisis of legitimacy in Afghanistan.

Since the fall of the Taliban almost eight years ago, the Afghan administrations under Karzai’s leadership have disappointed the Afghan people’s expectations, despite extensive foreign support. Afghanistan remains one of the world’s poorest countries. Progress is visible in the cities, but in the country’s 30,000 rural villages where three-quarters of Afghans live, little has changed. As a tribal leader from the southern province of Kandahar recently explained his decision for supporting Karzai’s main contender, Abdullah Abdullah: “There are no clinics, no schools, no roads, no water dams - nothing.”

The Afghan state has also failed to provide security, despite the presence of around 100,000 foreign troops. According to a UN threat assessment, 40 percent of Afghanistan is today either Taliban-controlled or a high-risk area for insurgent attacks.

This year has been the bloodiest international troops have suffered since 2001. But the escalating military conflict has also become a threat to the lives of average Afghans and claimed over 1,000 civilian deaths alone in the first six months of 2009.

While any government would struggle to cope with the challenges Afghanistan faces, these cannot excuse the rampant corruption and nepotism that have characterized Karzai’s time in office. The independent watchdog organization Transparency International ranked Afghanistan as the fifth most corrupt state in the world in 2008, trailing behind countries such as Congo and Sudan.

Against this backdrop, Afghanistan cannot afford a fraudulent election outcome. What was supposed to provide a government under siege with new momentum has now further undermined its legitimacy in the eyes of many Afghans. The low turnout, officially 38 percent, and widespread reports of fraud cast large shadows over the elections.

The UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) has received almost 3,000 complaints about voting irregularities, including large-scale ballot stuffing, falsification of tallies and organized intimidation of voters and candidates.

The ECC and the government-appointed Independent Election Commission have now agreed to rely on statistical sampling rather than investigating each claim. This procedure will speed up the review and it could make possible a run-off between Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah before the onset of the harsh Afghan winter in late October. However, if Karzai’s victory with more than 50 percent of the votes is confirmed by 'statistical sampling', it will further disillusion Afghans and thereby strengthen the hand of the Taliban.

The international community should now focus on two priorities. In the short run, it needs to unite to back the Electoral Complaints Commission in addressing fraud allegations. Brokering a deal between the candidates in behind-the-scenes negotiations, as the UN's special envoy for Afghanistan and other western officials are reported to advocate, would only add to the bitter cynicism that Afghans already have toward their government and the West. Moreover, such a 'National Unity Government' would have no guarantee against breaking apart - which is why none of the presidential candidates seem to be interested in such a deal.

The international community should instead guarantee a credible election between the two leading candidates, if at all possible before winter. As next year’s parliamentary elections approach, the international community should communicate very clearly that it is not ready to accept a stolen vote.

The international community will also have to push the Afghan government to build more effective and legitimate institutions. Western donors, in particular the US, have been the driving force in designing a highly centralized and personalized political system centered around Hamid Karzai. Individuals and events have been supported, rather than the building of democratic institutions and processes.

One of the main institutions, the Afghan electoral system, does not create incentives for developing effective political parties - the key mechanism in democracies for generating new political leaders. The parliament has been weakened and the development of local political structures has been neglected at best. Devolving political powers to local governments would make the system less top-heavy, and could be a way to address local needs more directly and efficiently.

As the sociologist Max Weber observed, only a legitimate government possesses a reliable basis for its rule. If the Afghan government and its international backers cannot rebuild popular legitimacy, no further military surge will be able to save Afghanistan.