Government legitimacy in democratic societies derives from popular votes. The higher the voter turnout in elections, the more the legitimacy of the government born out of the elections. Even though Afghans are weary of power seizures through violence and bloodshed, their participation in the previous presidential election was an all-time low. It was expected that democratic values would be gradually solidified and peaceful ways of transition of political power institutionalized, yet the extremely low turnout in the Sept. 28 presidential poll showed that continued electoral fraud and failure of electoral institutions to ensure transparency have badly undermined public trust in the democratic process.
According to official figures released by the Independent Election Commission (IEC), over 1.8 million Afghans had voted in the previous presidential election. However, given the volume of complaints and questions of some electoral teams about the validity of votes, the official voter turnout may drop further. For now, some presidential tickets have demanded the invalidation of 300,000 votes, which they describe as non-biometric, or cast outside the official voting time. This comes as over nine million people had registered to vote in the election, of which only 18 percent had actually voted if the current voter turnout is accurate.
The low voter turnout in the previous presidential election calls into question the legitimacy of the new government. While there needs to be a more unified, legitimate government in Kabul taking into account the fragility of the situation in the country, regional developments, and ongoing peace talks with the Taliban, the low level of participation in the election both undermines government legitimacy, and reduces chances of unanimity between the new government and other political forces for peace talks, a scenario which will benefit only the Taliban.
