| Summary: | The 2014 Afghan presidential and provincial council elections will have a critical effect on the future of Afghan democracy. At a minimum, they must be sufficiently credible to prevent severe division among elite political actors and ensure the survival of the current constitutional order. Yet there are growing expectations that the election might not merely be an elite pact between powerful figures from Afghanistan’s recent past, but more fully represent popular aspirations, particularly those of the growing urban and youth population. In order for this to happen, they must also be held in accordance with the legal rules that guide them, rather than be characterized by manipulation of these rules and government interference. Despite the problems of fraud in the 2009 election, where government figures and the electoral institutions themselves were partly responsible for the significant fraud that took place, there are a number of reasons to expect that the 2014 election will be an improvement on 2009, both in terms of participation and organization. If the elections held in Afghanistan since 2001 have diminished hopes for Afghan democracy, it is partly because an electoral formalism was introduced in Afghanistan before other elements crucial to a functioning democracy—the rule of law, political parties, institutionalized governance—really existed. The 2014 elections may reveal the boundaries of an emerging democratic space in which these features are beginning to emerge and, more importantly, where their value is increasingly recognized by Afghans. If, in every political transition, the future grapples with the past, the 2014 elections in Afghanistan may be a decisive arena of that struggle.
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