KABUL, 28 August 2005 — Printers in the Afghan capital are raking in business as candidates in next month’s elections order tens of thousands of posters to paste up across the country. “Democracy is good for business,” Faisal Rahmani, owner of a small printing shop in the center of Kabul, said yesterday.
Some walls in Kabul have become a patchwork of color, covered by election posters bearing candidates’ photographs, names and personal symbols as well as appeals for votes.
Some of the huge concrete blocks put up outside buildings to protect them from blasts have also been plastered with paper. Nearly 6,000 candidates are running in elections for a lower house of Parliament and for councils in all 34 Afghan provinces. Voting is on Sept. 18. The campaign has been low-key so far, expect for the blizzard of posters.
Rahmani, 22, said his business had boomed over the last few weeks. Dozens of candidates have come to his shop to get their election material printed, most ordering several thousand posters but one buying 50,000. His printing staff were working overtime every day, he said, shouting over the din of traffic and the clatter of a generator just outside his shop as Kabul was hit by another power cut.
An A4 size flyer costs about four to seven afghanis (about 8-14 US cents), depending on the quality of the paper. The other popular size, A3, goes for six to 13 afghanis (12-26 US cents) each.
Another printer said his business was up about three times, partly because most election posters were being printed in color. “Every day for the last month we’ve been meeting two or three candidates,” said Hassibullah Danish, owner of the Danish Printing Press.
His shop was staying open until late at night every day to meet the rush, he said. “In other countries, perhaps there are two or three candidates in an election but here there are a lot.”
With widespread illiteracy, candidates will be identified on the ballot by photographs and a personal symbol, allocated by the election commission. The election is being fought on a non-party basis so party symbols are not allowed. Candidates bring in their symbols and photographs on computer discs and then add a short message, usually mentioning law and order, Islam or democracy, and an appeal for votes, Danish said.
Kabul printers said many of the candidates they were doing work for were from the provinces, forced to come to the capital to get their printing done either because they could not find printers at home, or they wanted the best quality.
“We’ve got printing centers in Mazar-e-Sharif and Jalalabad but they can’t print this quality,” Danish said, referring to the cities in the north and east, as he pointed at posters spread out on his desk.
“This is an exception,” Danish said, referring to the volume of work he has been doing in recent weeks. “If there was an election every year it would be very good for my business,” he said.
