Canadian funding for Afghan elections--ignored

Why is this carried by the Chinese government's Xinhua (and MSNBC) but none of the Canadian media? One can only surmise that they are fixated on the death-watch at Kandahar and at home. Here's the goverment doing something very important to help develop Afghan governance, in close cooperation with the UN--the sort of thing critics of the mission are constantly saying we should do more of--yet the Canadian public will remain ignorant of the help. No wonder the mission is so poorly understood:

Canada to provide [US] $27 mln for Afghan elections

KABUL, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Canada has announced provision of 35million Canadian dollars which is equal to 27 million U.S. dollars to support holding the upcoming elections in Afghanistan, a press release of Canada's embassy to Kabul said Thursday.

"Canada's contribution of up to 35 million dollars from now until 2011 makes Canada a leading participant within a coordinated multi-donor effort," the press release added.

"This will help strengthen the Independent Election Commission as the lead Afghan agency administering the elections process," the press release further said.

Azizullah Ludin, the chief of Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission, announced Wednesday that the body needs 223 million U.S. dollars to run the upcoming presidential and provincial councils’ elections set for August 20 this year.

More from the official news release:

...
International electoral assistance is being coordinated by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and is expected to require more than CDN $260 million in overall international funding for the 2009 process alone. Canada's contribution of up to $35 million from now until 2011 makes Canada a leading participant within a coordinated multi-donor effort [over 13% of total international support]...

Canada’s contribution to the Afghan electoral process will be directed at supporting the core components of the elections process, including voter registration, recruitment and training of election officials, production and transportation of election materials and verification of results.

This will help strengthen the Independent Election Commission as the lead Afghan agency administering the elections process through direct assistance and through Canada’s contribution to the United Nations Development Programme Enhancing Legal and Electoral Capacity for Tomorrow (UNDP-ELECT) who will be playing a major supportive role to the Afghan Independent Election Commission.

Reports on the progress of voter registration and other election-related processes will be published in Canada’s quarterly reports to Parliament on its engagement in Afghanistan. Despite challenges, as of March 2009, more than 4 million voters have registered to vote, including almost 550,000 in the south, of which more than 300,000 are in Kandahar alone. These are new voters in addition to the approximately 12 million voters already in the existing national voter registry (2005), although some overlap may occur for individuals with lost registration cards, etc...

It now looks that the elections will be held in August after all, though real problems remain:

KABUL, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Wednesday rejected President Hamid Karzai's order of holding the presidential polls in April, months earlier than the date set by the commission.

The independent election authority has announced in January the election would be postponed to Aug. 20 because of logistical and security worries. But Karzai, who has declared his intention to run for a second term, suddenly issued a decree last week, ordering the commission to move the election forward to adhere to the Afghan constitution.

The President's five-year office term will end on May 21, and the presidential election should take place 30 to 60 days before that date in accordance with the constitution of the post-Taliban country.

The election commission on Wednesday ruled that April election is impossible due to security, logistic and financial problems. The commission, with 100 million dollars in pocket, still needs 223 million dollars to organize the upcoming election.

Karzai's sudden decree also drew criticism from the country's opposition leaders, who complained they won't have enough time to prepare for a spring vote.

Opposition leaders also said that, according to the Constitution, every presidential candidate had to finish registration at least 75 days ahead of the election date.

In Afghanistan's past, such disagreements have been settled violently, but this time could be different: the president and his opponents are attempting to use the constitution as both sword and shield, and each contends that the constitution supports its position.

Mohammad Ismael Safdari, a lawmaker in Wolesi Jirga or Lower House of parliament, criticized the President for issuing such order too late, saying that the order should have been released months ago.

He also added that the president's term ends on May 21 and remaining in power beyond the date is a breach of the constitution.

"The president should hand over authority to a provisional administration and thus prevent the vacuum of power," he told Xinhua.

Another legislator Atta Ullah Ludin had a similar view, stressing that an interim administration had to be formed to run the country until the new president swears in.

The UN, the U.S., the United Kingdom, France and NATO have backed Aug. 20 election, saying it would be safer.

Western officials expressed relief that an election date had been fixed, and Canada government Thursday promised to supply 27 million dollars for the Aug. 20 election [emphasis added].

However, the head of the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan, the Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide, warned that officials must now deal with a more difficult issue: how to manage the interim period after Karzai's term expires.

Karzai has several options to extend his office term, including declaring a state of emergency, though that would need to be endorsed by parliament. However, the President has reiterated that he would not stay in office beyond his term.

Our media and opposition parties also remain stupidly fixated on the prime minister's supposed "flip-flop" when he repeated what is clear, that the war in the end will not have a purely military solution--in particular through foreign forces decisively "defeating" the Taliban. And here's some pap typical of the Globe and Mail's Lawrence Martin:

On this war, the President should listen to the PM
...
The President appears to be on his way to making good progressive changes in other areas of foreign policy, but Afghanistan is vital. His new troops are being committed even before his administration completes a strategic update on the conflict. Like other presidents, he has the look of being tied (to use yesteryear's phrase) to the military industrial complex. Gotta feed the war machine...

Good grief--back to slanging that dreaded "military industrial complex". When will some people grow up intellectually?