Afghanistan’s Demographic Drought . After the first round of elections failed to produce a winner on April 5, the Afghans went back to the polls on June 1. Joint Publication 3-16. Multinational Operations. 07 March 2007 PREFACE. This publication provides doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States when. National Strategy for Combating Terrorism. The White House September 2006. Overview of America’s National Strategy for Combating Terrorism. As a frequent critic of the Obama administration’s foreign policy, I found Jeffrey Goldberg’s excellent interview a useful reminder that, for all my misgivings. Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani. Soon after the run- off, even before the release of the preliminary results, Abdullah’s team claimed that two million votes in favor of his opponent had been fabricated. Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission (IEC), then- President Hamid Karzai, and Ghani rejected the allegations. The dispute incited a long and bitter political battle — involving even the threat of a . The two candidates compromised and agreed to form a national unity government. In a ceremony in Kabul on Sep. Ghani was sworn in as president and Abdullah as chief executive. Afghanistan survived a possible catastrophe. This absence of reliable population data has always been a problem for the Afghan government, and it continues to create challenges in many areas, from effectively planning long- term development projects to efficiently running a general election. The impasse caused by the allegations of electoral fraud, and which brought the country to the verge of chaos, partly originated from this problem. In the absence of accurate demographic data on the geographic distribution of the population, it is easy for authorities to cover up corruption, favor regional affiliations in the distribution of economic resources, or manipulate votes. ![]()
In the run- off, the total number of votes increased dramatically to 4. As no reliable statistics exist on the population of eligible voters in Khost, it is difficult to prove that the additional 2. Various unsuccessful attempts, however, have been made to count portions of the populations, at least since the reign of Amir Sher Ali Khan (1. These attempts failed for countless reasons, including war and violence, the lack of political will, and in one instance, because of the public’s traditional suspicion of government employees. In the early 1. 90. Amir Habibullah Khan (1. Kabul city, it caused a huge public panic in the Afghan capital. According to Ernest and Annie Thornton, an English couple who were in the service of the amir, when government officials went door- to- door to gather information, all of the men in Kabul fled the city or . Soon after, the government abandoned the idea of conducting the census. Although it was the first methodologically rigorous survey in the country, the representative data it yielded was limited in scope, as it was based on interviews with only about 2. National Priority Programs Afghanistan Casualties OctoberNational Priority Programs Afghanistan Casualties SoldiersAfghanistan’s nomad population was not included. That attempt, however, was left unfinished because of threats from the mujahedeen. Although 8. 0 of the census takers were killed by the Islamic fighters, they managed to gather information from almost all of the country’s urban areas, 4. The Afghan government altered the questionnaire, which was prepared by UNFPA, at the last minute. The night before the census was to begin, President Nur Mohammad Taraki appeared on public television and radio stations and ordered all census takers to remove the question regarding ethnic affiliations from the questionnaire, fearing that with the availability of such data, . Power- sharing agreements based on the current official demographic estimations have been challenged by minorities who believe they have been under- represented in the Pashtun- dominated governments that have been in power since the country was founded in 1. Pashtun leaders and politicians justify their political domination partly by claiming to be the majority ethnic group. This is why the French geographer Daniel Balland attributes the lack of . Yet even after completion, the project will do little to settle the ethno- linguistic conflicts in the country, as the census takers have been instructed, once again, not to ask people about their ethnicity and mother tongue. Therefore, the ambiguity over the ethnic and linguistic distribution of the Afghan population will continue to stir disputes over power- sharing bargains. In most developing countries, government institutions are weak and traditionally underestimate the value of data. They have a brief history of systematic mechanisms for gathering, storing, and analyzing information. Sample surveys, with varied degrees of scientific precision, are usually substituted for national censuses. Therefore, eradicating information poverty should be the first step towards dealing with other forms of poverty and moving towards a functioning, democratic, and accountable government. The new government should make it a priority to conduct a comprehensive national census. As long as the Afghan ruling elites continue to use the uncertainty in the demographic data as a tool for grabbing political and economic resources, holding a transparent election, among other things, will remain a remote possibility. Ali Karimi is a Vanier Scholar at Mc. Gill University in Canada, where he is completing a Ph. D. Follow him on Twitter at: @The.
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