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Elliott School of International Affairs
Lindner Family Commons
September 8, 2005

Afghanistan: Parliamentary Elections & Narcotics

by H.E. Said Tayeb Jawad
Ambassador of Afghanistan to the United States

My good friend, Ambassador Karl Inderfurth
Distinguished Guests
Dear Students
Ladies and Gentlemen

I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to the Elliott School of International Affairs for inviting me to the annual Ambassadors Forum. I am honored to be here with you.

Tonight, I would like to speak to you about two important issues facing our country: the upcoming parliamentary elections and narcotics. As a prelude, allow me, to speak about the U.S.-Afghanistan partnership.

Afghans and Americans have successfully fought the two most important battles of this and last centuries, together. First, we joined hands in defeating communism and now we are fighting together for complete victory over terrorism. The United States has been leading the international community in the effort to help rebuild Afghanistan. Today, 17,000 U.S. troops are fighting alongside Afghans to make Afghanistan, and the world, a safer place. We are grateful to every one of them. About 156 U.S. soldiers have sacrificed their lives in Afghanistan, a third of which was combat related. They are true heroes. (Story of Fort Drum)

Our relation was further strengthened during President Karzai's landmark visit to the United States last May. On May 23^rd, President Karzai and President Bush signed the historic Joint Declaration of the U.S.-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership to consolidate our close relations, to address our long-term security needs, and to expedite the process of creating a democratic and prosperous country.

The U.S.-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership will restore Afghanistan's historic role as a land bridge connecting Central and South Asia. It will help shift the pattern of regional relations from rivalry to economic and political cooperation for regional stability and prosperity. The Partnership is not against a third country, but it deters meddling in the internal affairs of Afghanistan.

The U.S.-Afghanistan partnership has yielded significant results for our people. We have introduced a new currency and stabilized inflation. Afghanistan has re-entered the global marketplace and is quickly becoming reintegrated with the private sector as the driver. We have created the Afghan Investment Support Agency as a one stop shop to facilitate and promote investment in Afghanistan. We have established three new industrial parks. We have passed a new Investment and Banking Law and so far more than eleven foreign banks have opened offices in Afghanistan. A new Anti-Money Laundering Law is adopted this year.

Today, our schools are overflowing with boys and girls eager to learn; 5.6 million boys and girls are going to school. Women have returned to the workplace. As a result, over the last three years, our economy grew by an average of about 16% per year.

On the security front, terrorists and the Taliban are defeated, but they are not eliminated. The government policy of encouraging low ranking Taliban to lay down their arms and return to their homes and villages had left the leadership of the Taliban fragmented and isolated. However, we still encounter pockets of terrorist activities aiming at soft targets, such as aid workers, schools, mosques, highways in the south and south east, notably in Zabul Province, and parts of adjoining Kandahar and Uruzgan provinces - roughly 100 square miles of mountain and valleys along the border of Pakistan. The terrorists will not be able to hold ground, but they will desperately try to kill innocent civilians, blow up worshipers at mosques, and scar away aid organizations.

In October 2004, Hamid Karzai was elected President with 55.4% of the votes. The participation of more than 8.6 million Afghans, both men and women, in the Presidential Elections not only showed the confidence of the Afghan people in the political process and their commitment to democracy; but also sent a strong message to terrorists and extremists in the region. Every vote cast in Afghanistan is a vote against terror and in favor of democracy and global security.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

On September 18^th, Afghans will return to the polling stations to cast their votes again, this time for a new national parliament and provincial councils. Our Constitution provides for the election of a parliament, consisting of the Wolesi Jirga (The Lower House) and the Meshrano Jirga (the Senate); as well as Provincial Councils; District Councils; Village Councils; and Municipal Councils and elected mayors.

Enormous logistical operation has rolled out to enable over 12.4 million people, 43% of which are women, to vote at 30,000 polling stations in 5,000 polling centers around the country. 6000 candidates are running. The JEMBS employ 4500 regular staff in the run up to the elections and will have 120,000 staff working on Election Day. Some 1800 donkeys and horses, 1000 trucks, 2300 jeeps, 3 Antonoves, 24 aircraft, Boeing 727's and helicopters, will transport 160,000 ballot boxes made in Canada and 40 million ballots printed in the United Kingdom and Austria, to every corner of the country. Sixty-nine different ballots were produced.

The Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) has introduced a Code of Conduct that candidates were required to sign when filing their nomination papers during the candidacy period. By signing, candidates swear an oath that they have not been involved in any criminal activities that would disqualify them from standing.

The Electoral Law elaborates on the Constitution and determines the election procedure for the President and the National Assembly.

Members of the Lower House are directly elected in provincial constituencies for five years by direct and secret ballot. There will be 249 seats in the Lower House. Ten seats are allocated to the kuchi or the nomad population; three of these seats are reserved for women. The remaining seats are distributed among the provinces according to the size of the population.

The Constitution mandates that two women be elected from each of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, to the lower House of Parliament. This means that at least sixty-eight of the 249 (or 27%) of lower house seats will be occupied by women, placing the Afghan legislature in the top 20 when it comes to the worldwide comparison and considerably higher than the United States or the United Kingdom which have 15% and 18%, respectively. There are 342 female candidates running for office (12%).

The Senate consists of 102 members. Senators are elected by a mixture of appointments and indirect elections. Two thirds are elected. Within 15 days of their installation, members of each Provincial Council elect and send one member to Kabul to serve for a period of four years in the Senate. Members of each District Council in each province elect and send one person to serve in the Senate for a period of three years. The President selects the remaining one third for a period of five years. Appointees by the president shall include two representatives of the disabled, and two representatives from the kuchis or nomads and 17 women.

Provincial Councils will have between nine and 29 members depending on the size of the population of the province. A quarter of the seats on a Provincial Council are allocated for women.

We will not be able to hold the District Council elections on September 18, 2005. This means that District Councils won't be able to elect their one-third of the Senate seats for some time. A temporary solution has been devised whereby the President will only appoint 17 Senators in stead of 34, thereby maintaining the two to one ratio of elected to appointed seats. District Councils have between 5-15 members depending on the size of the population. The district elections are postponed until the ongoing disputes around the district boundaries are resolved by the Parliament. Population statistics, and subsequently seat allocation, are very sensitive issues. Some district boundaries are disputed, and several new provinces and districts have been named over the past few years, without proper official maps to define the new boundaries. There are also no authoritative population data available, and a planned census is to be completed next year.

In addition to the constitutionally mandated councils, thousands of Community Development Councils (CDCs) have been elected as part of the National Solidarity Program.

Members of the Lower house of Parliament are elected through the Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV) system, whereby each eligible voter casts one vote for one individual in his or her province.

This system was chosen after extensive consultations and debates. SNTV is easy to understand by voters and simple to count. It also ensures representation of independent candidates, which in a country like Afghanistan, with its suspicion of political parties, has some advantages. Afghans still do not trust organized political forces; historically such political parties have been in the extreme right or left with serious credibility problems. People associate political parties with the Communist Party and the Soviet invasion, or armed militias and factional fighting that caused much death and destructions in Afghanistan.

Under the SNTV, the likelihood of a candidate winning a seat depends on how their supporters distribute their votes between the candidates of a particular party. A party could win the majority of the votes in their province, but not win a majority of the seats. Some experts argue that SNTV may have a negative impact on the development of national political parties by encouraging candidates to push local issues, rather than a national agenda. The fact is the emergence of strong political parties with national agenda will take time in Afghanistan. Right now over 79 political parties have registered under our newly adopted Political Parties Law.

Some experts proposed the List Proportional Representation. The main disadvantage of List Proportional Representation is the imposition of a rigid party structure where political parties are generally weak and unpopular.

We know that those political parties are necessary for building a civic society and insuring effective representation of citizens. There are new parties emerging with some civilian roots and democratic intentions. A number of U.S. and European organizations are working with such new parties to build capacity, promote national agenda and encourage coalition building. The new Constitution prohibits political parties from having military wings. When and if needed the elections law can and will be revised.

In the upcoming elections only 12% of candidates have indicated party affiliation in their nomination papers. Political party affiliations are not to be shown on the ballot.

The Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) is running the elections. The JEMB now consists of four international experts appointed by the UNAMA, and members of the Afghan Independent Electoral Commission with nine Afghan members appointed by President Karzai in January 2005 under the new constitution.

Additionally, the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), mandated by the Electoral Law, is tasked with adjudicating complaints about electoral offences, and challenges to candidate eligibility.

The ECC had screened more than 6,000 applications to ensure that nominees met the requirements for candidacy. The ECC received a total of 1,144 challenges against 557 candidates from around the country. 17 candidates were excluded from the final list the main reason being links to armed groups. There were 250 withdrawals from the candidacy process. The final list includes 2,709 candidates for the lower house and 3,027 candidates for Provincial Councils; including 69 for kuchis.

Security

We have disarmed 120,000 militias ahead of the elections through the Afghanistan's New Beginning Program, launched by the Afghan Government with the support of the international community. A number of candidates turned in their weapons voluntarily.

Security arrangements on Election Day will be similar to the presidential elections. This means that the local law enforcement will be the primary belt, the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police the secondary and reinforcement belt, with NATO and ISAF as on call back up.

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) brought in additional troops and deployed F-16 fighters to maintain security during polls. The Netherlands are sending a marine battalion, Spain has sent 400 soldiers, France 300 troops, Romania 400 extra troops and Austria an additional 100. Overall, 2,000 more NATO peacekeepers are deployed throughout the country.

Observation

We now have our domestic monitoring body, the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA) set up in March 2004 by a group of Afghan NGOs with support from the National Democratic Institute. FEFA will have monitors, one male and one female, in most of the polling centers. In addition, there will be international observers, including a full European Union observer mission. Thirty Four thousands observers will be deployed on Election Day.

The ballot count should be completed by October 9th. A complaint period following the release of provisional results has been set until October 21st. Announcement of the results are scheduled for October 22, 2005.

Work is underway to build the capacity of the parliament. India is restoring the building of our parliament. The two-year project will provide technical and financial assistance to the Afghan parliament in numerous areas such as legal support, information and communication technologies, parliamentary outreach and public awareness programs, project management and specialized training. Key actors in the project are the U.S., France, European Union and United Nations. The female members of the parliament will be in particular need of resources and training.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Afghanistan has been called the world's newest democracy, due to our successful state building process in the short 3 years. Democracy as a system of government may indeed be new to Afghanistan, but democracy as a way of life, and as a set of principles and values, is deeply embedded in our society. We are a country of councils; the Loya Jirga (Grand Council) and local shuras have been time-tested institutions contributing, for centuries, to the political life of our country. Our people find strength in building consensus; but we are also very much an individualistic society that loves freedom.

We are realistic about the many challenges that we are facing. Afghanistan is not yet out of the woods. The effects of massive destruction caused by 25 years of war are very much present in our country. Afghanistan is still among the poorest countries of the world. We have one of the highest infant mortality and one of the lowest life expectancy rates in the world; and we have unacceptable levels of illiteracy, particularly among women.

While the fight against terrorism is succeeding across the country, narcotics and the accompanying corruption are now the biggest threats to the state-building process in Afghanistan.

Narcotics and the ensuing corruption pose a serious challenge for all of us. Cultivation and trafficking of narcotics go hand in hand with terrorism and lawlessness and undermine the state building process and good governance. It is to our best national interest to fight them all. We know that heroin is one of the sources of the illegal money that funds international terrorism and crime across the region and finances the destabilizing activities of criminals in Afghanistan. Negligence of the drug problem can easily undo the achievements of the Afghan people and our international partners over the past four years.

I would like to talk about how narcotics came to Afghanistan. First, the war and violence of decade-long Soviet occupation devastated Afghanistan's agricultural economy and destroyed rural communities. The social fragmentation replaced the social cohesion and the traditional values and leadership was replaced by a culture of gun and violence. Second, the factional infighting in the 1990's further increased the suffering in Afghanistan. People lost their hope for the future and their trust in rule of law. It is in this context of extreme hopelessness and human insecurity that Afghan farmers switched to the deadly crop of opium. People turned their vineyards and orchards into poppy fields.

We have adopted a National Drug Control Strategy consisting of eight pillars: 1) building institutions, 2) information and religious campaign, 3) alternative livelihoods, 4) interdiction and law enforcement, 5) reform of criminal justice, 6) eradication, 7) demand reduction, and 8) international and regional cooperation with our neighboring countries.

The latest news on opium cultivation is good. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released its 2005 Afghan Opium Survey. The UN reported a decrease in cultivation from 131,000 hectares in 2004 to 104,000 hectares this year, a significant decline of 21%. This means that one field out of five cultivated in 2004, this year were dedicated to other cause.

The UN offers several explanations for this year's decline in cultivation. First and foremost is President Karzai's success in convincing a large number of farmers to refrain from poppy cultivation is evidence of the respect Afghans have for his elected office. Second is the effective law enforcement and of the civil and religious fatwa launched against drugs. Lastly, economic forces also helped to dissuade growers, as the opium stocks rebuilt since 2002 and the resulting downward pressure on prices, especially at the farm-gate, have led to an inevitable market correction.

In October 2004, our provincial governors eradicated over 4,007 hectares. The Central Poppy Eradication Force (CPEF) and the Afghan National Police (ANP) eradicated an additional 5,100 hectares.

Unfortunately, while so many farmers cooperated in 2005, nature did not. Heavy snow and rain conditions in Winter-Spring 2005, as well as the absence of large-scale poppy diseases, resulted in a much higher yield than in the previous year, representing a productivity gain of about 22% over 2004. As a result, the total potential opium production in Afghanistan in 2005 is estimated at around 4,100 tons, representing a decrease of only 2% compared to the 2004 harvest.

Noteworthy is the fact that the 3 provinces where this year's decline in cultivation was most striking (Nangarhar - 96%, Badakshan - 53%) or where cultivation remained stable (Hilmand - 10%), are the same 3 provinces that received the largest contributions for alternative development (Nangarhar US$ 70.1 million, Badakshan US$ 47.3 million and Hilmand US$ 55.7 million). We believe that alternative development is the key to succeed in the fight against narcotics.

History demonstrates that, anywhere in the world, farmers who are given the option to choose between legality and illegality choose legality, even when the money is less. When the choice is between hunger and illegality, the farmers choose illicit pursuits. Counter-narcotics measures that hit only the poorest of the poor, namely the farmers and ignore the traffickers and processors with their terrorist links may not be effective.

Our comprehensive strategy envisions a long-term integrated approach to enhance human security in rural Afghanistan through alternative development. We need resources for alternative livelihoods, including major job creating infrastructure projects, such as building roads and water dams, rural development, better farming techniques, and off-farm income generation programs. We welcome the willingness of the coalition forces to play a greater role in assisting our Government with interdiction. We would like them to arrest the drug traffickers, monitor drug routes and shipment of chemical and destroy drug laboratories.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The Afghan people are grateful to the United States for all the assistance provided to them and thank all U.S. soldiers who are fighting alongside Afghans to make Afghanistan, and the world, a safer place. Afghans have put their trust in the benefits of democracy and partnership with the United States and the international community. Our people welcome the U.S. engagement in Afghanistan. Where extremists have tried to build walls, we are building bridges. The emergence of a stable, democratic, and thriving Afghanistan, eager to partner with the United States, is a great opportunity for the region and an important asset for global security.

Thank you.