Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: Government

Government

Guns, Girls and Grizzled Warriors: Ismail Khan’s mujahedin council project in the West

Fabrizio Foschini •

The phenomenon of Afghan strongmen visiting their home provinces and delivering fiery speeches to their ‘traditional’ constituencies is all but new. Still, it has intensified as of late, as the transition process is said to progress and the next presidential election approaches. The most recent rendition given by the Minister of Water and Energy, Ismail […]

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ARTE Journal: US Elections and Afghanistan

AAN Team •

ARTE (French-German TV), 6 November 2012 The evening news draw a balance of Obama’s Afghanistan policy, and AAN’s Gran Hewad is on air, saying that the US have early on given away the chance for an honest state-building process, have practically excluded civil society forces and instead re-empowered people who have committed war crimes (His […]

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The Ulama Council: paid to win public minds – but do they?

Borhan Osman •

The largest religious body in Afghanistan is the National Ulama Council, which was set up by President Karzai almost a decade ago. The president’s hope, expressed at the time, was that the council – with its 3,000 members from across the country, all of whom receive government salaries – would help him win political support […]

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Questions abound as Afghans ponder 2014 elections

AAN Team •

dpa/Gulf Times, 2 November 2012 The German news agency quotes from Thomas Ruttig’s AAN blog about the Afghan elections: the expected shortcomings of the 2014 elections ‘reflect on how poorly … the post-Taliban political process has been implemented and how weak the state of Afghan governance and democracy still remains’ and that the existing 17mn […]

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Taliban can run for the Afghan presidency

AAN Team •

Deutsche Welle (English), 2 November 2012 Ain his election date blog, Thomas Ruttig is quoted here as saying that inviting the Taliban to run in elections was nothing really new and that the same offer had been made to the militants earlier. The Taliban, he said, had not accepted the offer. Ruttig hoped that this […]

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Afghanistan’s next election: Heavy lifting ahead

AAN Team •

Economist (blog), 1 November 2012 The Economist’s Banyan blog with a first reaction to the announcement of the Afghan presidential election date links to Thomas Ruttig’s AAN earlier blog on voter registration.

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A thin line between insurgency and local politics in Badakhshan

Fabrizio Foschini •

The competition between strongmen in Badakhshan until recently took place mainly at the local level – commanders would vie with each other for the control of poppy cultivation and trafficking or mine extraction. Patronage from the centre, from the Badakhshi politicians in Kabul, had also been a vital component of these struggles, but until recently […]

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Election Date Fixed, but Questions Remain on Next Steps

Thomas Ruttig •

Afghanistan has a date for its next presidential elections: 5 April 2014. But today’s announcement by the Independent Election Commission of a timeline leading up to this date leaves questions open about its implementation. First, there are contradictory statements about whether the old, controversial voter cards will be used again. Second, the IEC aims at […]

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Afghan presidential vote due April 5, 2014: official

admin •

AFP, 30 October 2012 An Afghan election official was not able to shut up and wait for the official announcement planned for tomorrow, 31 October: Apparently, the next presidential (and provincial council) election will be held on 16 Hamal 1393, i.e.5 April 2014.

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Warning Bells over Slow Electoral Reform and Voter Registration for 2014

Thomas Ruttig •

A number of organisations have warned that electoral reform in the run-up to the 2014 polls in Afghanistan is moving too slowly. Two issues stand out: the lack of a voter registry and the lack of a revised electoral law. The recent argument about whether the future ECC should include UN-nominated members or not is […]

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19 October 2012 – AAN/AW Transition Seminar Series 1: Lessons Learnt from the Past Elections

AAN • admin •

The Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN) and Afghanistan Watch (AW) launched the first of a Transition Seminar Series on 18 October 2012. Professor William Maley and AAN’s Martine van Bijlert spoke about the lessons that were learnt through the previous elections in Afghanistan and the implications for the upcoming polls planned for 2014. Follow-up seminars on […]

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Time to Pack Up

admin •

New York Times, 13 October 2012 In an unusually long editorial, the influential New York Times now takes the position that US troops should withdraw from Afghanistan even before the end of 2014. ‘This conclusion represents a change on our part’, it says. ‘The war in Afghanistan had powerful support at the outset, including ours, […]

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