Good Afghan election news

In the Ottawa Citizen (also in National Post, picture from there)--but nothing in the Globe and Mail:

Lack of violence over Afghan vote puzzles diplomats
Taliban vows to attack during process have so far gone unfulfilled

Canadian diplomats are surprised and puzzled by the lack of Taliban attacks during the just completed voter registration process in the volatile Kandahar region in the south of Afghanistan.

"On the whole it was very successful ... It went far better than we expected," said Ken Lewis, Canada's senior diplomatic representative in this war-ravaged province, which is home to nearly 3,000 Canadian troops. "In the south, there were almost no direct attacks on the process."

Asked why the Taliban, which has condemned the elections and vowed to attack them, had not interfered, Lewis said: "I don't know why. It could be that they simply didn't have the horses on the ground to make a direct attack. Then again, the IED fellows have been very active over the winter and there weren't any IED strikes against the registration process. So, it is puzzling."

There were 12 million eligible voters nationwide when the registry was last done in 2005. Despite the increasingly bloody insurgency and deep snow in the mountains, another 4.4 million voters were registered this month.

About 300,000 new voters were registered in Kandahar's 15 districts by the Independent Election Commission, which regarded the process as a trial run for the Aug. 20 ballot. Most encouraging of all, perhaps, for western officials based in this deeply traditional province, was that about 38 per cent of those whose names were inscribed on the voter rolls were women.

"We know that in some districts there were ... things that in a Canadian process we might see as irregular," Lewis said, citing the fact that some men had been allowed to submit the names of their entire families. But this was "understandable for a country at this stage of development," he said.

Canada is one of the lead nations in supporting elections, having contributed $35 million to the election commission [something ignored at the time in our media], because the federal government sees the vote as a way to "enhance the legitimacy of the Afghan government," Lewis said.

"They can point out that they have a mandate from the Afghan people. That is important in a country were there are contenders for power. It gives the upper hand legally and morally to the elected government."

One of the keys to success, Lewis said, was "to get out the Pushtun vote," as many young men from that famously war-like tribe have been the Taliban's strongest backers.

Holding elections was problematic, "given the state of the country and the fact that you have an insurgency and that the election will be taking place during the season when, traditionally, there was been a lot of fighting," he said.

Because of the likelihood of violence, the Canadian army is already working closely with other NATO forces and the Afghan army and police on plans "to put a hard crust around the election process and the polling stations" in Kandahar, Lewis said.

Archie McLean for Canwest News Service: Canadian soldiers talk to officials outside a voter registration centre in Senjaray, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. Local election officials are pleased with the number of people who braved Taliban