Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-10-26-Speech-3-295"
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"en.20051026.20.3-295"2
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".
Madam President, last month’s elections in Afghanistan were an important milestone and I echo the tributes paid to Mrs Bonino and her colleagues for all the work they did. After all, these were the first parliamentary elections to be held there since 1979. The turnout, greater than 50%, compares favourably with other electoral contests around the world.
There were problems, but those – not necessarily in this House – who want to criticise need to remember the starting point, and the Commissioner’s words ‘chaos’ and ‘devastation’ really summed it up. Whilst Afghanistan may now still be far from perfect, it has come a long way. We, as an election observation team, were very proud to witness not just women coming to the polling stations to vote – many choosing not to wear the burkha, as is their choice – but many women election officials and women standing as candidates. We know now that many women were elected. So Afghanistan, for all its problems, has come a long way.
On the list, one of the first names to be announced as elected was the women’s rights activist Malalai Joya. She will be one of 62 women members in the parliament, a major achievement and unthinkable a little while back. Some of them were elected in their own right, and some of them by virtue of the ‘25% women’ rule. However, some of the ghosts of Afghanistan’s brutal past have re-emerged as other results have trickled in.
When we were there observing the elections, President Karzai explained to us his choice, or
choice, of electoral system – to which the Commissioner has also referred – based on a single non-transferable vote. This entails no public political party support on the ballot papers but presents the voters with a list of quite literally hundreds of names from which to choose. Hidden in those lists of names are people who could best be described as having less than satisfactory records, some implicated by human rights groups in war crimes. Former Taliban governor Mawlawi Mohammadi, who, if not personally responsible, at least oversaw the destruction of the Buddha statues, was elected in one province on less than 10% of the vote, which arguably is a flaw in the system. Mullah Raketi, commander of a Taliban military unit, was elected in another.
So the task now facing President Karzai is not an easy one. It is to help those disparate forces form a useful, workable and effective legislative body. One of the challenges facing them, but a vital one, is to address the country’s serious drug problem, to which the Commissioner again referred. The army, the police and the law enforcement agencies need to work together with all the international bodies to look at alternatives for the poppy growers. Another is to address the frightening availability of weapons, which was very visible to us in Kabul and around Afghanistan.
Last year, the Dutch Presidency made much of its plans for supporting and helping Afghanistan. These plans must not be forgotten. The Election Observation Mission of which I was proud to be part must be part of a longer, deeper process of support for Afghanistan."@en1
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