WHAT’S CLEAR about Afghanistan’s parliamentary elections, which were held on September 18th, is that they will bring to Afghanistan a popularly-elected legislative body working under a constitution for the first time in its history. The new parliament should open for its first session sometime in December. What’s far from clear is whether these elections will represent the fledgling steps of a stable and sustainable democracy in Central Asia.

The fact that democratic elections were successfully held amidst a persistently unstable security environment might bring some hope that stability is around the corner. Taliban threats to disrupt the elections went mostly unfulfilled–what violence there was, including the assassination of nine candidates–did not derail the elections. And so far, other than a few protests, the complaints period has been mostly uneventful (though the governor of Kunar has issued arrest warrants for Afghan nationals working on elections in his province).