After six weeks in Afghanistan I was about to board my Afghan Ariana flight for a ten hour nail-biter to Frankfurt, Germany to connect with my flight home. I had spent three weeks with a documentary film team following the top candidates in Afghanistan’s first ever democratic election.

    I fought my way through the chaotic crowd and breathed a sigh of relief as I walked towards my jet (a used plane donated a few years back by India). As men started unloading my plane’s luggage, I had the bad feeling that the man waving at us with the Walkie Talkie wasn’t saying good-bye.

    Women in headscarves, men in turbans, children and I filed back to the drab terminal as our airplane (which they said had mechanical problems) was being surrounded by a large security team. I watched as snipers took positions along the roof of Kabul airport, teams searched the parameter of the area, and Dyncorp security (American ex-special forces) toting the latest weaponry circled the plane. Even an Apache attack helicopter patrolled above. The crummy blue seats came out of my airplane and fancy leather lounges went up. Today Afghan President Hamid Karzai wanted to fly— he had funeral to attend.

    The latest polls in Afghanistan’s historic democratic election, which will be announced officially after Ramadan (the Muslim holy month of fasting ending November 15th), had Karzai with almost 70% of the total vote. Karzai’s use of the media, government assets such as airplanes and helicopters, and US support gave him a significant advantage. Each of the 17 candidates running for president were allowed one month to campaign. Three members of our documentary team made a 20-minute chartered flight to Mazar-i-Sharif for a morning of campaigning with Karzai’s main rival for president, Younis Qanooni, a leader strongly connected to the Afghan national hero, Ahmed Shah Massoud. Our cameraman John Monte was on the trip:

    “Upon landing, Qanooni’s guards armed with AK-47s surrounded us as a crowd of hundreds collapsed into a swirling mass waving signs. The handful of press was submerged into the waves. Qanooni was whisked away in a line of black armored Four-Wheel Drives—a line of vehicles perhaps worth millions. An Afghan Translator quipped that if you stood close and scratched the paint, you could easily smell the fragrance of poppies [now one of Afghanistan’s main cash crops, and the main ingredient in heroin production]. The motorcade barreled on into Mazar. Trucks, busses, motorcycles and four wheel drives carved a two-lane road into a four lane one-way highway of dust and wild euphoria.”

    Massouda Jalal, a primary focus of our documentary, was the only woman running for president. In a dark, soviet era apartment/ campaign headquarters, her children sat in their mother’s lap as she met with clerics, tribal leaders and European Union officials. Despite her shoe-string campaign budget, Dr. Jalal’s posters emanating the aura of a saint were pasted all over the country. Even the US Ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, told us he believed Jalal was the “sleeper” in this election, although he had met her only once.

    Dr. Khalilzad, appointed by US President George W. Bush, charmingly talked with us in a sit-down interview at the US Embassy. Khalilzad’s intellect, linguistic skills (he speaks Dari fluently), political shrewdness, and close friendship with Karzai has made him a highly effective operator in the highstakes landscape of Afghanistan's emerging democracy. This man, who looks like Peter Sellers without the moustache, is probably the most powerful man in Afghanistan aside from Karzai. Let us not forget he is backed by the US military.

    On election morning the Kabul streets, normally packed with diesel spewing cars, were eerily empty as we sped through the dust storm to Qanooni’s house. Instead lines of people, including rows of women in burqas wound around mud brick buildings as they waited to vote. The violence, which the Taliban vowed to inflict, never materialized on this day.

    In Qanooni’s marble floored compound garnished with sparkling chandeliers, the first signs that the well planned election would be marred by a detail as small as ink, began to unfold at about 9:00am. Men in turbans marched in one at a time showing that the indelible ink (meant to last a week to prevent voter fraud) easily rubbed off their thumbs. People were now voting, according to some reports, as many as 40 times. Qanooni’s distinguished face was now perplexed. As we rolled our cameras, Qanooni rang Ambassador Khalilzad to lodge his concerns at about 9:40 in the morning.

    At about 10:15 my camera team raced over to Massouda Jalal’s headquarters from Qanooni’s. As we arrived we began rolling on Jalal’s husband—- the main architect of her campaign—- who was also now on a cell phone with Khalilzad. Here too, voters showed how the ink easily rubbed off, and one man boasted of voting four times. Both Qanooni’s and Jalal’s headquarters turned not to the United Nations (who set up the election), but to the US Ambassador to clear up the mess.

    We received a call at 10:45 that Qanooni was going to lead an all out boycott with the other candidates, with the exception of President Karzai, who maintained the voting was fair. At this point the election seemed to be in jeopardy. If only Karzai remained as a candidate, it wouldn’t be much of an election. My camera team left for the meeting of candidates threatening to boycott, which Jalal opted not to attend.

    As we left Jalal’s for the meeting, our second camera team arrived at her campaign headquarters as Khalilzad’s motorcade of green Ford Excursions rolled up at about 11:30am. They began filming as his extensive security detail cleared the area. The Ambassador waved to our cameras in his cordial way as he walked up the dusty path for his first ever visit to Jalal’s office. Khalilzad personally met with Massouda Jalal in a closed-door meeting at about 12:00. After the meeting Jalal would announce she was not going to boycott, rather she would stay in the race under protest. Karzai and Jalal were the only official candidates remaining in the race after the other candidates including Qanooni, did in fact, boycott. The legitimacy of the election, it seemed, was salvaged by a mere hair. Voting continued in record numbers throughout the day.

    The bottom line was that the Afghan people’s desire and excitement to vote, and their pure turnout, overshadowed the political wrangling by the power seekers. The people’s hope for a democratic Afghanistan was clear. The international media tried to play up the ink dilemma, but in the weeks following the candidates that boycotted, slowly trickled back. The US Ambassador’s quick work of keeping two candidates in the race paid off paving the way for an election that history books will most likely remember as a mild success, despite its flaws.

    Weeks later and about to leave Kabul, after Karzai commandeered my airplane, I sat more than seven anxiety riddled hours in the airport with my Afghan brethren, not knowing what was in store for us (when would I be able to leave Afghanistan?). I began to realize during my feelings of helplessness that for the successful growth of Afghanistan, there would need to be more than a presidential election, and the building of roads and wells across the country. Almost more important is the fundamental concept of democracy, as stated by Abraham Lincoln, “government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” must take root in the hearts of those in power in Afghanistan.

    Clearly there is the potential that a democratic system in Afghanistan may reinforce and legitimize the status quo— a situation where guns and power and warlords are rewarded— rather than a system that serves the interests of the people.