Pajhwok news agency released a heart-touching story of a man during election. Story looks much like fantasy sacrifices in the old stories. He is the resident of Warjali area of Thanai district of Khost province and covered the death of his ailing daughter in order to let people of his villages to take part in the runoff presidential election uninterrupted.
A day before the election, Mohammad Jawaz Khan had attended a gathering of villagers to discuss the election. The gathering was called by influential tribal elder Abdul Ghaffar. After consultations, the participants decided they would actively participate in the June 14 runoff election.
After the meeting, he went home and informed his family members about the decision. He was able to convince his family members into casting votes for a candidate of their choice. It was midnight when her eight-year-old daughter, Daryam Gula, started vomiting after suffering diarrhea. She was taken to a doctor in the village and was given some medicine and taken back home.
Jawaz Khan said: “Two hours after when we brought her home, her mother and other female members started crying. They said DaryamGula has died.“On hearing this, I felt numbed for a while but summoned courage and went to see her. I tied a white cloth under her chin and over the top of her head and carefully placed her in the bed.
He told to Pajhwok that election was due tomorrow and he had promised villagers that his family would take part. “I called on my family members not to cry because neighbors could get suspicious. All my family agreed they would stay silent until the elections are over. We spent the night awake. The females were crying but slowly. No one in the neighborhood got to know.”
In the morning, Khan said his brothers, theirs sons and wives who possessed voter cards went to a polling center in group, but the mother of DaryamGula stayed at home. “Her mother was unconcerned about what was going on in the outside world. She kept starring at the face of her child and crying.”Khan’s 14 family members cast votes at a polling station in the Warjali area. Jawaz Khan said it was unfortunate that some people cast doubts about the turnout in Khost and expressed the hope that people’s genuine votes would be accorded respect.
After the conclusion voting process, he called on participants and informed them about the demise of his daughter. He has told that if he informed the village residents about the demise of her daughter earlier, the vote casting would have gotten disrupted!
Perhaps, many take the negative side of the story and might even brand him as unsympathetic father. How a dad can ever tolerates that his body of his demised daughter remains in home but he goes to polling center for casting a single vote?
On the other side, to story reflects how much people have tired of dictatorship and continual political chaos and instability. Like Jawaz Khan, thousand others have made also parallel sacrifices. Despite knowing that their lives are in danger and they might brutally be punished by Taliban and other armed militants, they stormed to polling centers courageously. By high level of turnout in each and every polling centers across the country, Afghans once again shouted loudly and jointly, saying they are tired of war the traits they are known for. They want peace and stability. They want like other nations watch out over peaceful transfer of power. They look forward for a legitimate government which is selected by people not by muscle of this and that figure.
Thus, the high level of turnout depicted a new picture from political consciousness and political awareness of Afghans. If the political allows them, democracy and democratic will soon be embarrassed by people as after decades of fighting and being stuck exhaustive civil war, they understand more than any other nation how valuable is democracy. They understand that depth of tragedy that war can cause. They young generation wants to live a better life unlike their fathers and forefathers had. Similarly, the older generation losing their family members does not want their sons and daughters suffer as they used to.
Such sacrifice made despite knowing that the election cannot be entirely fair and transparent. But people casted votes on one hand to tell in consensus that they are tired of war and instability and reject militants who still preach that Afghan people do not want to democracy but the kind of government they want to establish.
So people did their responsibility—no they made huge sacrifices to select their new ruler and the new government. Now it is the turn of politicians who are blamed for chaos and instability engulfed millions of lives during last four decades. The province where Mr. Khan hided the demise of his daughter in order to let people participate to runoff presidential election, is now one of the controversial provinces with allegation of high level of electoral fraud.The vagueness of destiny of election result has already set the country on the edge of precipice. If they do not reach into a political deal which is also illegal as the next president should be elected through votes of people and of course the final announcement of the result by election commission, the aftermath would be horrifying. Meanwhile our elites will suffer the least and poorer section the most. Perhaps, it is the unequal level of sufferings that make some figures to put stability on line for pursuit of power.