Through gendered Lens

Afghan presidential election, 2009: A Perspective from Women Representation

The second presidential election in Afghanistan under the present constitution of Afghanistan was held on August 20, 2009. The previous election in 2004 was won by President Hamid Karzai, who is running for re-election. Elections for 420 provincial council seats were held at the same time. NATO officials announced in May 2009 that 15.6 million voters had registered to vote, roughly half of the country's population; 35 to 38 percent of registered voters were women. These registration numbers have been disputed, however, by the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan and media reports, which suggest widespread fraudulent activity in the election process.

The list of top contenders for the 2009 presidential elections is: Hamid Karzai, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, and Dr. Ashraf Ghani. Examining the list of Contenders in Afghan Presidential Polls from a perspective of women representation it can be found that only two Afghan female politicians amongst 42 men stood for the presidency in August elections. Dr. Ferozan Fana, a resident of Kabul was the first female presidential candidate in the Afghan polls, who registered her name with the office of Independent Election Commission (IEC) in Kabul on Wednesday. The second presidential hopeful, Shehla Atta, is a member of the lower house of the parliament. However, a remarkable number of women have shown eagerness in the provincial council's elections that makes more than 10 per cent of the entire candidates. The figures show that 342 women out of 3,324 candidates stood up for the provincial councils polls which took place together with the presidential votes. Though there was a minor participation of women in the presidential elections, the presence of women in the provincial councils' elections is significant.

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), said insecurity had "severely limited freedom of movement and constrained freedom of expression for candidates". Security concerns prevented presidential candidates from campaigning in most of the provinces, and candidates running for provincial councils were under constant threat wherever they went. Widespread cultural opposition to women in public life, further compounded by the lack of security, made campaigning by women candidates very difficult or impossible in many parts of the country, according to EU observers. Topics concerning women's rights were virtually never featured in news coverage of the electoral campaign, and women received almost no coverage in news reporting during the election, according to a European Union observation mission report. The monitoring group found that in many places people was being issued multiple voting cards, which voting cards were often issued for children, and that stacks of voting cards were given to men who falsely claimed that they were for women in their households. Thus though Afghanistan's second Parliamentary election took place in 30 years, true democracy cannot be achieved until women are given equal rights as men as women's rights and genuine democracy are interdependent.