VZCZCXRO6950
PP RUEHPW
DE RUEHBUL #3106/01 3380356
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 030356Z DEC 08
FM AMEMBASSY KABUL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 6281
INFO RUCNAFG/AFGHANISTAN COLLECTIVE PRIORITY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KABUL 003106 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SCA/FO, SCA/A, S/CRS 
STATE PASS TO USAID FOR AID/ANE, AID/DCHA/DG 
NSC FOR JWOOD 
OSD FOR MCGRAW 
CG CJTF-101, POLAD, JICCENT 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KDEM PGOV AF
SUBJECT: OLD AND NEW RUB TOGETHER IN VOTER REGISTRATION IN 
PAKTYA 
 
¶1.  (SBU)  Summary: The dry, spare southeastern province of 
Paktya, bordering on Pakistan, retains a solid social 
framework of Pashtun tribes and traditional values.  Its 
inhabitants are also eager to win their fair share of 
political representation and development dollars in the new 
order.  As the old and the new jostle together, Paktya is 
making bumpy progress in preparing for the presidential and 
provincial council elections in 2009. 
 
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THIS TIME, SIGNING UP TO VOTE FOR SURE 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU)  Provincial Electoral Officer (PEO) Amir Hamza Khan 
is clear: "The voter registration process is going well," he 
says.  As of November 28, 105,232 new voters had joined 
Paktya's rolls, a total for Phase 2 that is second only to 
the vastly more populous province of Kabul.  All 18 sites in 
Paktya's 11 districts are open; deployable teams are 
responding to remote communities' requests for greater voter 
registration opportunities; and no violence has marred the 
process.  As in other provinces, electoral officials have 
negotiated with community leaders to allow registration 
workers to travel safely to troubled areas, of which Paktya 
has any number.  PRTOFF and EMBOFF on November 29 and 30 
visited about 25 per cent of Pakyta's voter registration 
sites, in rural Sayed Karam and Ahmad Abad districts as well 
as downtown Gardez, and saw voters and registration staff at 
work. 
 
¶3.  (SBU)  Paktya's voters have responded with zest to 
diverse methods of public outreach.  Local and electoral 
officials report that they played drums, visited parks and 
mosques, and manned loudspeaker trucks as part of the civic 
education campaign.  Provincial and district officials have 
enthusiastically promoted voter registration throughout the 
process.  Governor Hamdard set the tone, hosting a large 
shura in Gardez November 3 for about 150 tribal elders and 
district officials to encourage people to get out and 
register. Local representatives of the Pashtun-centric 
Hizb-e-Islami party said November 26 that they planned to 
send a party letter to encourage members to register. 
 
¶4.  (SBU)  A variety of people posit that, because few of 
Paktya's citizens voted in the last election, the province is 
under-represented in the legislature, allowing the central 
government to neglect Paktya.  (In 2005 turnout in Paktya was 
modest after registration had been high; international 
election workers suspected registration fraud.)  This low 
participation is a mistake, Paktyans say, they are determined 
to correct.  "I saw a man who weighed 200 kilos, and a woman 
who was 100 years old" come to register, twinkled Ahmad Gul, 
a registration worker in Ahmad Abad.  "Everyone wants to 
vote." 
 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
ADDRESSING VOTER INTIMIDATION AND IRREGULARITIES 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
 
¶5.  (SBU)  PEO Hamza Khan acknowledges, however, that Taliban 
efforts to intimidate voters have kept turnout low in Zormat 
district, in the south.  "People call me and say they want to 
register, but that they are afraid," he said.  On November 30 
Hamza Khan reported that Taliban fighters forced five voters 
in Zormat to eat their new registration cards.  Earlier, 
Taliban in Zormat broadcast threats from loudspeaker trucks 
and checked passers-by for signs of the fingerprint ink used 
in registration.  Turnout recently has picked up slightly, 
Hamza Khan added.  "People pretend they are going to the 
clinic, and then come and register," he said.  Hamza Khan and 
the province's Afghan National Army (ANA) chief are 
coordinating future ANA maneuvers and the retrieval of voter 
materials from Zormat. 
 
¶6.  (SBU)  Irregularities n registration of women is another 
flaw in Patya's process, and reportedly also in neighboring 
Logar province.  A UNAMA field officer on November 27 cited 
credible reports that in Paktya men provided lists of women's 
names to registration workers and received voter cards in 
return.  In keeping with traditions that exclude women from 
public places, the women never appeared at the registration 
site to prove their identity or provide fingerprints.  At a 
women's registration site in Sayed Karam on November 29, 
EMBOFF observed a registration worker apparently preparing 
 
KABUL 00003106  002 OF 002 
 
 
cards from a hand-written list, with no women present. 
 
¶7.  (SBU)  PEO Hamza Khan is aware of such irregularities and 
claims to be working to resolve them, although local UNAMA 
staff believe problems are more pervasive than he admits. 
The PEO has met with FEFA, the Afghan NGO leading election 
observation efforts, and checked through its short list of 
irregularities. He has tried to smooth over complaints from 
provincial council members about an overbearing electoral 
official in Ahmad Khel district.  Hamza Khan deployed a team 
to register recent returnees from Pakistan in their 
settlement outside Gardez, rather than accept a proffered 
list of new returnee voters.  When told of the incident at a 
women's site in Sayed Karam, Hamza Khan noted he had already 
received a phone call from the site's staff, and planned to 
follow up. 
 
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TRADITION AND CHANGE, BENEFITS AND COSTS 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶8.  (SBU)  Paktya's mix of traditional tribal ways and new 
democratic institutions is producing uneven results, and its 
citizens and leaders appear to still be sorting out the 
advantages and disadvantages of each for the future.  PEO 
Hamza Khan meets weekly with his counterparts in the Afghan 
National Police and Afghan National Army to plan and 
coordinate on security for voter registration; the principal 
topic on November 30, for example, was retrieval of completed 
voter materials, and the discussion was productive. 
 
¶9.  (SBU)  At the same time, IEC headquarters is considering 
authorizing provincial election officials to also work with 
tribal security forces (arbakai) in Paktya for the completion 
of Phase 2, and Paktika and Khost for Phase 3. A provincial 
council member on November 27 insisted that such tribal 
forces would be key to security on voting day next year; a 
local official in Ahmad Abad likewise endorsed their 
effectiveness, citing cooperation between tribal forces and 
the police on border control. In fact, in the run-up to voter 
registration and as it progresses, Paktya's security forces, 
government leaders, and tribal elders have consistently 
maintained that arbakai are essential to securing the 
process. 
 
¶10.  (SBU)  As for how this traditional society copes with 
the demands for women's participation, the IEC found women to 
staff the voter registration sites in downtown Gardez, but 
had to fall back to using elderly men, and one widow, in the 
rural areas of Sayed Karam and Ahmad Abad.  It is not clear 
how much such adaptations affect women's turnout, nor whether 
the observed irregularities in registration of women 
represent clumsy attempts at fraud, or a compromise on 
procedure to meet traditional social norms. 
 
DELL