There Still Is Time for A Vote in Afghanistan

No need to call off elections, issue yes/no ballots with green yes and red no

By Robert Weller

As an old Africa hand I think I have a way to allow the Afghanistan election to go ahead with perhaps no more than a week’s delay.

One cautionary note, most of the 30 African nations I visited rarely bothered with elections.

The late Zaire President Mobutu Sese SekoMobutu Sese Seko, one of many U.S. installed dictators during the Cold War, offered his citoyens two choices: yes, or no. Green meant progress. Red meant chaos.

Sitting around with nothing to do on an election day where the outcome was already known, a fellow reporter and I grabbed a cab and drove to the nearest voting station. There were a fair number of people there and they all seemed to have green ballots.

We asked to see the red ones. They didn’t have any. We hoped back in our cab and returned to the Intercontinental Hotel. A dozen or so other hacks were still lunching, and laughing at us.

Then the secret police showed up. Not really KGB grade they allowed me to go to my room to get something I said I needed. Actually I called the U.S. Embassy. And I got through, another miracle. Wes Fenhagen, a tall thin man with the quiet authority of a George Smiley, said tell them we must be released by 5 p.m. And we were.

So here it is. All we have to do is make green and red ballots. No writing or printing needed. Now if nobody wants Karzai then we will have a new election in the spring when the weather is better.

Liberia had a unique method, not likely to be used again. Gangster and child killer Charles TaylorCharles Taylor, won in Liberia in 1997 with the slogan, "He killed my ma. He killed my pa. But I will vote for him." In the next election, George Weah got past Taylor with "Did I kill your ma? No. Did I kill your pa. No. Then vote for me."

"The slogan he chose to use against Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson _ that he owned no books and couldn't read _ failed.

And who are we to criticize vote fraud. I remember hearing of people rising from the dead in alphabetical order in a presidential election in Texas. And Holocaust victims voting for Pat BuchananPat Buchanan. We won’t even talk about Chicago.