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Are liberal democratic institutions the answer to the cultural identity-based political turmoil of Afghanistan and Iraq? This is one of the most thought-provoking posers Afghanistan's current presidential election and the elections to representative institutions scheduled to be held in Iraq next January, raise.

In other words, will the US-backed efforts to transplant democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq succeed?

Afghan election workers pass ballot boxes along a line to be carried for vote counting in Kabul, October 10, 2004 at the end of the country’s first democratic elections. The largest observer group in Afghanistan’s first ever presidential election called the polls “fairly democratic” a day after the massive voter turnout and jubilation was tainted by opposition cries of foul and demands for a re-election. AFP PHOTO

The indications from Afghanistan so far, are that the popular enthusiasm for the exercise of the ballot is high. The turnout of voters at the first direct presidential election in two decades is reportedly considerable.

Official figures are yet to be released on this question of the voter turnout but Afghan voters have apparently braved the bombs and bullets of the hardline Taliban organisation to exercise their franchise.

Yet, some hard questions remain. To what degree, for instance, would the norms of liberal democracy be observed and respected by the varied interest and pressure groups in Afghan politics which are based largely on ethnic and cultural identities?

The US is reportedly backing a highly centralized political system in Afghanistan where power would overwhelmingly reside in the institution of the President. In the case of Afghanistan, if predictions prove correct, the US-backed, Pashtun strongman Hamid Karzai would emerge victorious in the country's presidential race.

How would the ethnically and culturally diverse and warlord-infested Afghan polity react to his coming to power, particularly if he is to wield sole executive authority? Would they cooperate with the Pashtun President or prefer to go on a violently dissenting course, as has been the case over the past 25 years in Afghanistan?

Round one, it could be said, has been won by the Afghan people. They have shown notable willingness to exercise the ballot and are therefore comfortably acclimatizing themselves to essential democratic procedures.

However, some 15 presidential contenders - other than Karzai - have reportedly cried "foul" over perceived election malpractices and are said to be boycotting the staggered Presidential poll. The question is: is this a sign of things to come?

Some of the presidential front runners were: Younus Qanooni, an ethnic Tajik leader and the leader of the former Northern Alliance, Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Uzbek leader, and Mohamad Mohaqiq, leader of the mainly Hazara Hizb-i-Wahdot from the Central Bamiyan region.

It could be seen that ethnicity and cultural linkages are playing a huge role in the race for power in Afghanistan. While the Afghan people themselves may be happy with the fundamental procedures of democracy, the power elites as such, may think otherwise, as is already happening to a degree.

Identical posers may emerge in the culturally diverse Iraqi political arena too in January - if the ground situation there permits the holding of elections. We may be having in both hot spots a situation which is somewhat similar to that which prevailed in Lebanon in the mid-Eighties - that is a fierce power tussle between power elites which owe their allegiance to diverse cultural and ethnic groups.

The emerging challenge in both, Afghanistan and Iraq, would, therefore, be to look beyond power-centralization as a governing strategy.

Power decentralization and federalism would, in both countries, help in integrating into a single state, the countries' diverse ethnic and cultural groups.