War took a heavy toll on her family. Now she is fighting … for Afghan democracy

By Dilip -
Zakia Wardak’s family has been fractured and diminished by long decades of war in Afghanistan. Soviet forces killed her father four decades ago, Americans seized and tortured her husband two decades later and her brother was murdered in the capital this past summer.

Yet, somehow, she has not abandoned hope. Relatives abroad begged her to join them after the latest killing. Instead, convinced that Afghanistan can still change, that the peaceful country of her childhood memories can be reclaimed, she has taken a tentative step into the dangerous, notoriously corrupt arena of Afghan politics, running for a seat in parliament.

 “There’s a lot of injustice going on, particularly affecting the younger generation,” said Wardak, a successful engineer who virtually shuttered her business several years ago to focus on health and women’s rights. “If you have a seat in parliament, you can raise people’s voices.” The odds are stacked against her. It is still not clear if the 30 October vote – widely seen as a trial run for an even more high-stakes presidential poll next spring – will go ahead.


The election is already more than three years overdue and mired in controversy. Some opposition leaders want further delays so that biometric checks on voter identity can be brought in. Officials have already quietly dropped plans for a vote in one key province, eastern Ghazni, without bothering to inform voters or provide an explanation... read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/30/zakia-wardak-afghanistan-young-politicians-democracy-elections

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