Thanks to Wikicommons.
We at US Democrazy often cover stories that emphasize the CRAZY in our name.
But as we turn our curious gaze toward the normally chaotic Afghanistan…. the news is: things are NOT AS CRAZY AS WE THOUGHT!
It seems, despite fears for the worst, the recent Afghan presidential elections have been a success.
This is a surprise because the violent radical Taliban threatened to kill any and all involved with the elections. Some citizens, fearing reprisals did stay at home. But many people voted, and generally the polling places were safe.
Now, your probably wondering who has won this election.
Have a guess…
Was it the current President Hamid Karzai? The former Foreign Minister Dr. Abdullah Abdullah? Maybe even the egg head technocrat Ashraf Ghani.
Well… it will be a couple of weeks before the official numbers come out… but we hate to wait so here is what the experts think the results will be.
It appears Karzai might get the most votes, but that won’t cut it. To be the next president one must get 50% of the votes. If one of the three candidates doesn’t reach that mark (and that is very possible), there will be a run off election between the two highest vote-getters. So it’s not over yet…
Of course… its not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game, right?
Shuja Nawaz, writing for Foreign Policy, says which ever man becomes president the real winners are
the people of Afghanistan. Rather than hurl rockets or grenades at each other, they have debated and traded arguments. Rather than picking up arms, they clicked on to their computers and glued themselves to their TV screens to watch what the candidates were saying.
Or maybe it really is just about winning.
Kim Barker, over at the Daily Beast, reported that
If Karzai wins outright Thursday, his closest rival, Abdullah Abdullah, a former leader of the Northern Alliance, has already raised the specter of fraud. Considering that Afghanistan has no history of peaceful protests, that could mean violent riots when the results are announced. And already, Abdullah has said he cannot control his supporters, a message that many interpret as an encouragement to rampage.
Talk about a sore loser.
So hold on tight folks. There is still plenty of time to put the “crazy” in Afghan democracy.
