Can Afghanistan hold a meaningful election?

In Herat and other provinces, security has increased in preparation for the upcoming parliamentary elections.

(Image credit: Getty)

last updated January 8, 2015

With insurgent attacks on the rise, a British military commander warns that Taliban fighters will try to disrupt the voting in Afghanistan's parliamentary elections this Saturday. The Taliban have claimed responsibility for killing at least three candidates. Human Rights Watch says the violence and threats against election officials and anyone who dares to vote could severely compromise the results of the country's second parliamentary vote since a U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban from power. Is it possible to hold free and fair elections in these conditions? (Watch an al Jazeera report about voting card fraud)

No, this vote will be a fraud: With corruption still rampant, says Pip Hinman at Green Left Weekly, this vote is bound to "be no more free and fair" than the presidential election Hamid Karzai stole last year. With election officials forced to close 15 percent of the 6,900 polling centers, this will inevitably be, as one politician aptly put it, a "democratic facade."