Election campaign like any other facet of politics has its own definition and ethics. The objective of electioneering is not to insult your rivals, spread lies or level false allegations against them, but rather to win voter support by presenting your programs and plans to the public, and do, if required, a juxtaposition of the plans and qualities of candidates without trying to affront them. If there is a meaningful election campaign, the focus of the presidential tickets should be to convince people to vote for them by explaining their platforms. During this period, the voters should find out more about the candidates and their policies, which can have direct impact on their lives and future.
Despite almost two decades of experience of democracy, the election campaign ethics are yet to be embraced and institutionalized. For a fourth time, the presidential campaign in the country is unfortunately riddled with negative propaganda and lies. Instead of grabbing the opportunity to tell people about their programs for peace, security, economic welfare, social justice, and etc, and convince the people who have the best programs and plans for the country, the presidential teams have concentrated on negative propaganda against and accusations of each other. The electioneering has turned ugly with rival candidates crossing all limits of political struggle and campaign ethics.
The election teams, especially the leading ones, are spreading false information against each other. In some instances, they are even misusing the names of reliable international media outlets to propagate the fabricated information with an aim to entice voters away from them. They are using all means to tell the public about the weaknesses and negative points of their rival tickets instead of informing people of their own positive and strong points. The blame game has got as tense as it has overshadowed discussions over development plans of the candidates. The presidential tickets that have development plans and programs are also bogged down so much in the unhealthy competition that they have got no time to explain them to the people. The upcoming presidential election is not Afghanistan’s first election; thus, the electoral campaign ethics must have been improved over the previous three elections to a degree that can push the candidates to focus on the country’s major problems and challenges than on insulting each other.
