General Interest Review 00012

Legitimacy (political)

Political legitimacy in the classical sense is the act of a public giving consent to a leader to govern them. By extension, the public also gives consent to the system of government in place. For a functioning democracy, legitimacy is one of the most basic requirements. The public votes for their leadership, and the leadership carries out the work of governing with a mind toward the people.

But this year the eyes of the world were transfixed on two cases that batted around legitimacy like it was an easily discarded ideal. A hurdle that merely had to be leapt over on the way to more pressing matters. Following elections in Iran and Afghanistan, outside parties declared elections legitimate, but there was much turmoil in the public itself as to whether the elections were legitimate. Without the consent of a majority of the public, the game changes when these so-called leaders claim to speak for such amorphous entities as "Afghanistan" and "Iran."

Iran was the more clear-cut example of the complete refusal to acknowledge any public interest in governing. In an election with a huge turnout, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the reigning regional instigator and total crackpot, was said to have defeated Mir Hussein Mousavi, a member of Iran's more-centrist-than-the-hard-liners political establishment. Mousavi was shown to be gaining significant ground in polling, but the lead evaporated literally into thin air with the actual
election, leaving Ahmadinejad with more than 60% of the vote. This is a landslide in most political systems, and is especially huge given what followed. With charges of fraud unrefuted by the ruling establishment (controlled by the Supreme Leader) Mousavi's supporters -- and anyone else who found themselves offended by the lobsided tally that was released -- took to the streets, and were forced to confront police despite the peaceful nature of most the protest.. Immediately, Ahmadinejad's legitimacy was called into question. But the Supreme Leader, who backed Ahmadinejad in the election, wouldn't even entertain remotely the notion of a smeared election. The Supreme Leader rules on the basis that he is entrusted with the government by Allah, making it rather difficult for a devout Muslin to rationally argue something he says. But so many in Iran seemed to see through this thin veil of reasoning that it's difficult to see how the Supreme Leader could entrust the practical side of running his government to a President that was forced to watch as police beat back his opponents' supporters in increasingly bloody streets. Ahmadinejad obtained legitimacy not from the people, but from a force sent to overrule the people.

In Afghanistan, the situation was even more uphauling to democratic principles -- and slightly more tedious. Afghans braved threats of violence spread far and wide by the Taliban to vote for a new leader, only to find that the vote had been declared overwhelmingly fraudulent in many areas. Unlike in Iran, the crimes were laid out specifically. Ballots were invented for voters that did not exist, ballot boxes were not even delivered to some locales, and thousands of claims of fraud were filed with the government. A UN commission, after much delay, publicly acknowledged findings that there was widespread fraud. The U.S. eventually encouraged now-tainted president re-elect Hamid Karzai to accept a runoff with challenger Abdullah Abdullah -- the least he could do to let the public weigh in again given the Tora Bora-sized cave the allegations put him in.

But then Abdullah pulled out. And the U.S. found itself conferring legitimacy on Karzai. Obama said the result corresponded with Afghan law. Whether there is a provision calling for fraudulent claims to be completely discarded in the Afghan Consituation is not even the point. With American involvement, it is apparent that Afghan law need not exist.

First the U.S. openly encouraged Karzai to submit to a challenge that had a remote poppy field of a chance of bringing some form of legitimacy to his new term. But with Abdullah's candidacy the allegations of fraud apparently evaporate as well. You could make the argument that Abdullah Abdullah conferred legitimacy, but he didn't sound like he was too resigned about things when he said this is only the beginning of change in Afghanistan.

Obama's reasoning is semi-clear. In order to speed the decision about how many more troops to send to Afghanistan, he needs a clear Afghan government to broker with. Absent from that sentence is the word legitimate government. The people's voice has still yet to be heard resoundingly, but apparently that is beside the point when the so-called security of the region is at stake.

This forces the Americans into a parallel with the Supreme Leader -- a place either side probably doesn't want to find themselves. By ignoring legitimacy in the service of supposed higher means, democracy has been cast off in both cases. Calling a system democracy because there is an election does not make it so, no matter how great the strength of the power that says it.

So what of the will of the Afghans? They are worse off than the Iranians in many ways -- empowered to vote only to see their hopes evaporate with fraud. They cannot even take to the streets because they know they will meet violence from the Taliban. At least in Iran there was the hope that a large enough crowd and enough Western media presence would keep the fighting to a minimum. Maybe the best place to look for that is among the rubble in the villages recently bombed by both the Americans and the Taliban. To the average Afghan, it must be gratuitously clear that the political tightrope the U.S. is trying to walk matters nil in the face of more destruction and devastation.

And in both cases, of course, the vanquished election results leave a certain conclusion. The collective public will never even know who they truly voted in.