Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-10-26-Speech-3-305"
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"en.20051026.20.3-305"2
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"Madam President, I should like to pay tribute to the Afghan people and to the country’s authorities, in particular President Karzai, for having succeeded in holding free elections. These are a crucial step towards the establishment of democracy and peace in Afghanistan. Five thousand seven hundred candidates stood in the elections held on 18 September of this year to provincial councils and to the Wolesi Jirga, which is the Lower House of the National Assembly, and this figure included 575 women.
The scale of the problems faced in holding the elections can be gauged from the fact that 26 000 polling stations were opened throughout the country. The ballot paper for Kabul, to cite but one example, took up seven pages, and included 617 candidates standing for the 62 seats in the constituency. 30% of seats in the Wolesi Jirga and the provincial councils are reserved for women. While the number of women voting in the presidential elections in 2004 was over three million, over 7000 new female voters registered for this year’s elections, representing 44% of newly-registered voters.
This is only the first step towards democracy in Afghanistan. Parliament’s pre-election mission, which visited Afghanistan on 14-19 July of this year under the leadership of Mr Brok, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Mrs Morgantini, Chairman of the Committee on Development, held meetings with election candidates, women’s organisations, human rights groups and NGOs in Kabul, Herat and Bamiyan. The people we met were hopeful that democracy would be victorious, although they also expressed concerns about threats to this process.
As I see it, the key threats are the state of security in the country, violence against women and corruption. Many former military leaders accused of human rights violations or even crimes ran for election and gained seats. There is also a risk that criminal elements, above all drug barons and smugglers, will gain an influence over politics in the country. The European Union must do everything in its power to stabilise democracy and the re-emerging civil society in Afghanistan."@en1
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