The long journey towards democracy in Afghanistan

Democracy has never been a guaranteed cure for political failings or the answer to every social need. But when managed properly, it represents the best option for fair governance. Democracy offers transparency and measurable progress.

It reserves the right to check that progress, and if need be, remove a government. That is political life in Afghanistan today.

Democracy is also about economics, the ability of the average person to make a decent living.

A strong economy requires investment and convincing prospective partners that investment is worthwhile is another task for Afghanistan's electoral process.

That Afghanistan has no history of democracy certainly makes this a tall order but not necessarily impossible.

The election of Hamid Karzai in October was a big first step in this process for Afghanistan, but a larger one looms on September 18. Afghanistan now has a democratically elected President. The country will now seek elected representatives who will shape the course of Afghan recovery.

To achieve this, Afghanistan has chosen for itself an interesting system of democracy, a semi-proportional system called the Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV). It has its advantages and disadvantages but is the one chosen by Afghans for Afghans when their constitution was determined in January last year.

It has the advantage of being able to best facilitate minority party representation.

While it is a system that has not always been able to guarantee truly proportional results, it is a system that Japan has shown can work since adopting it after World War II.

In the political structure in Afghanistan the President and his Cabinet at its head sit alongside the Parliament.

The Parliament is made up of an Upper House and a Lower House, known as the Meshrano Jirga and the Wolesi Jirga, and they contain 102 seats and 249 seats respectively.

The forthcoming elections will determine representation in two directions.

One ballot is for the Provincial Council, from which one third of Upper House seats will be drawn.

The second is for direct appointment to the Lower House, the only path for admission to that body.

The remaining two-thirds of the Upper House are appointed by the President and are drawn from the district councils, the voting for which has been delayed because of logistical reality and the trouble Afghanistan has experienced in determining district boundaries after 23 years of war.

A decision is yet to be made about the criteria to be employed in lieu of the District Elections for this, the first cut of the Afghan Parliament.

The election has been broken down into several steps, the first of which, candidate nomination, has been completed. This involved men and women who wish to stand for either the Provincial Council or the Lower House registering as candidates.

The criteria included being an Afghan citizen at least 25 years of age or older, having collected the required number of signatures for nomination and having paid the candidacy fee. Candidates cannot have any criminal convictions, have any known ties to illegal armed groups or hold senior public office. This stipulated criterion is seen as most likely to lead to problems when the final list of candidates is announced on Tuesday.

The next major step in the Elections is Voter Registration.

The tight timeline set by the Joint Election Management Body (JEMB), a combined international/Afghan expert group responsible for the running of the election, has drawn some criticism.

Fortunately, with this election following so closely after the presidential vote, most of the voters who registered last year are still eligible.

From last year's target of registering all eligible voters in a nation of 25 million-plus in six months, this time round it is a case of registering an estimated 300,000 in one month from late last month.

The campaigning period follows in the months leading up to the mid-September poll. This election race has moved on from a single ballot to elect a President from a list of 18 candidates to a two-ballot poll involving an estimated 6000 hopefuls in 34 provinces and an additional virtual province for Afghan nomads, the Kuchis.

Security concerns for candidates remain a harsh fact of Afghan life. It is impossible to provide protection for all candidates. Early indications suggest many are at risk.

The more unscrupulous candidates and their supporters have already shown they are not above murder to increase their chances on polling day.

The obstacles are many, the challenges great and the risk high. Remarkably, the feeling among average Afghans is one of optimism.

Historically, the introduction of democracy needs this more than almost anything else.

* Montague Walker is the nom de plume of a New Zealander working in Afghanistan as a freelance journalist. He has been living in the region for 18 months after experience in other conflict zones including East Timor and the Solomon Islands. He is based in Kabul and travels extensively through Afghanistan.