Yet Another Post on Afghanistan's Elections

I just returned from a Center for South Asian Studies lecture by Michael Carnahan, Senior Advisor to Afghanistan's Finance Minister. During this, I had the opportunity to ask about whether Afghanistan's forthcoming elections would really be in any way democratic give stuff like this and this. His response was not terribly reassuring. After a bit of "umm"-ing, he talked about how unpopular the warlords were, and suggested that no matter what they did Karzai would still win and he was the most popular candidate. This led to a suggestion that savvy warlords might figure out who the people wanted to vote for and try to puch that agenda to make themselves look influential, and that really who's to say someone voted for a certain candidate out of conscience or intimidation? He also added something about the importance of securing all the polling places so warlords couldn't intimidate people.

Only the last point really addresses my concerns, and he admitted he thought they should have fewer polling places to make that job easier. The issue of voter registration was not addressed. He did, however, make a solid case that Afghanistan has the potential for long-term stability on the current trajectory, and powerful people were embracing the process (such as it is) and willing to compromise.