Verfasst von Last week we gathered with some young afghanish boys to talk about the concept of democracy through election in Afghanistan. Firstly i will give you some information about the election that happened last month in Afghanistan.
Parliamentary elections were held in Afghanistan on Saturday 20 October 2018 which was supposed to happen in 2015 but has been postponed by the special decision of president. During the elections 193 attacks had happened, 36 people have died and 126 people have injured.“One of the major issues in need of reform has been voter registration. Afghan voters are currently not limited to voting in particular areas, meaning that they can use their 2001-issued voting cards in any polling station. Simultaneously there have been 3 major registrations since 2001, resulting in a total of 20 million election cards being distributed. In contrast, Afghanistan only has an estimated 12 million voters, making the number of cards in circulation a source of potential fraud.”[1]
According to the information that an Afghan youngster told us during the conversation, the registration for elections is a big problem. People who are living in countryside have no opportunity to go to registration centers in big cities because they either do not have money to go there or it is not safe to travel all this distance.
Also they said when you show a copy of your vote which you are allowed to take(!) to the party that you voted for, you get money for that.
The youngsters were not so motivated to talk about what was happening in Afghanistan anymore. Because they have lost their hope about that situation will get better after the things they have been experienced. It is clear that democracy is a concept which has lost its meaning in their country. The elections are non-functional and only for show which are held in such conditions. We can not surprise that the youngsters do not want to know what is happening in Afghanistan. Apparently this situation has made them apolitical. And nobody can blame them for this. May be they just want to have a simple and safe life after all they have seen.
Then the conversation have come to the democracy in Austria as we were living here now. Carmen told us some statistics which brought us in a point that there was nothing left to say. In Austria there are 931,583[2] people from other countries who have no citizenship. This means in a country that has around 8,8 million population, 11,11% of population has no right to vote. It is very antidemocratic considering that participation is one of the most important condition of democracy.
In the end we all have come to the conclusion that we all have so much to learn about democracy and put it into practice in our real lives as participant of this conversation who are different part of world like Turkey, Austria, Afghanistan…
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_parliamentary_election,_2018
[2] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/293102/umfrage/auslaenderanteil-in-oesterreich/
Saf/ve Afghanistan 