I'm sure you've all seen the coverage of the Afghan Elections this week. I was not directly involved with observing them, but since a bunch of people have asked, here's my little view.
Things here have been much quieter than we all expected. There was some violence, but nothing like what a lot of people were afraid of. How many people came out to vote seems to be totally dependent on where they were. Kabul was slow at first, but picked up at some stations later in the day. Herat had lines at 3am for the 7am opening time. Other places were almost empty. I heard an estimate that 50% voted. That sounds like most democracies to me... Anyway, now the really interesting part starts - the count. If there's a run-off, chances are I will get more involved with that.
We have a bunch of pictures up on the Embassy's Facebook page too.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Kabul-Afghanistan/US-Embassy-Kabul/34734118909?ref=nf
Friday, August 21, 2009
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Is there any kind of census performed or any real accuracy if it is? I cant imagine that with the southern border regions being as open as they are that there is any kind of accurate tally of the number of voting citizens in Afghanistan.
ReplyDeleteAccurate number of eligible voters? No, nothing close. No one has any real idea of how many people live here. That said, they do know how many people registered to vote.
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