Everybody here, from Afghan to zed, thinks that holding elections in June is crazy. I will go further than that: everybody thinks the elections are a farce.
Karzai will win. That has already been arranged. So why, some exasperated people snarled, bother with the elections?
Sure, an election gives Karzai a veneer of legitimacy – and Bush a mask of it. But Afghans are not stupid (and have rather extensive experience with geopolitics; one might even say they imbibe it with their mother's milk) and they know exactly what is going on. They know that their election is being played out (just as was ordained in Bonn) in order to impact the US elections.
Cynical? They would call you naïve if you somehow came to a different conclusion.
However, in contrast to nearly every piece of commentary on the Afghan Constitution from the Western audience (NGOs, media, whoever), every single Afghan I’ve asked thinks the Constitution is a good document. They then offer the caveat that implementation is nearly impossible.
Posted by Martial