For Afghanistan’s recent presidential and provincial council elections, NDI fielded a delegation of more than 100 international and Afghan observers stationed in every region of the country and Kabul, the capital city.  

Conditions were difficult on election day.  Violence, such as rocket attacks and bombings, as well as Taliban threats of violence posed tremendous challenges for voters.  John Manley, a member of the delegation’s leadership team and former Canadian deputy prime minister and foreign minister, applauded the courage of Afghan voters in an op-ed piece that appeared in the Globe and Mail.

“Despite threats of violence, Afghans turned out by the millions and voted, leaving polling stations with the tell-tale index finger stained with silver nitrate, proclaiming for all the world to see that they had participated,” Manley said. “Taliban had threatened to cut off these stained fingers, and vowed that one woman, a candidate in the provincial council, would be decapitated unless she withdrew her name from the ballot. (She did not.)”

Leading the delegation along with Manley, were former U.S. Senator Gary Hart; Karl Inderfurth, former U.S. assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs; Nora Owen, former minister of justice in Ireland; Karin von Hippel, co-director of the Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Jamie Metzl, executive vice president of the Asia Society; Kenneth Wollack, president of NDI; and Peter Manikas, NDI’s director of Asia programs.

Read the entire editorial on the Globe and Mail Web site.

You can also read Gary Hart's editorial on the Afghan election published on the Denver Post Web site.

Pictured above: A voter dips her finger in an ink bottle at a Kabul polling station during the Aug. 20 elections.

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Published on August 28, 2009