Afghanistan’s first woman to graduate from Oxford University says she’s “cautiously optimistic” her country can continue on a path of stability post 2014, “because, frankly there is no other option.”

Shaherzad Akbar graduated with a master’s in development studies from the prestigious university in 2011, and now works as a senior consultant at the Kabul-based public relations firm QARA Consulting.

The firm believer in Afghanistan’s preparedness for democracy and progress said anxiety over NATO forces withdrawing combat troops by December 2014, after 13 years of fighting the Taliban insurgency, was diminishing in the lead-up to next April’s presidential election.

“Two years ago there was a much higher level of concern about what might happen post 2014,” she told a forum, Afghanistan in Southwest Asia, at ANU this week.

“That concern has decreased significantly with our preparations for elections…we have officially finalised and approved the legal framework for the elections, which is a big achievement for Afghanistan.”

The freedom to express views and opinions regarding political matters was facilitated through more than 19 television channels, Akbar added.

“Twenty years ago, even 10 years ago, we would never have allowed ourselves to think that we could criticise our political leaders, our political opponents,” she said.

“Or offer a different idea about what the political leadership is about.”

While nervous about the future, Akbar also said she was “cautiously optimistic.”

“We are optimistic that we can continue our path of stability,” she said.

“Because frankly we have no other option.”

Speaking alongside Akbar, Sonia Eqbal, chair of youth political movement Afghanistan 1400, pointed out there were nearly eight million students attending school in 2013, compared to less than a million in 2001.

“I think Afghanistan has the most educated people, and more educated women than it has ever had in its history,” she said.

Other improvements included “thousands of kilometres of new roads across the country” better enabling farmers to take their produce to markets.

She too expressed cautious optimism regarding Afghanistan’s post 2014 future.

“We’re going to be here,” she said. “We have to try out best to not allow Afghanistan to go back into chaos.”

Professor William Maley, Director of the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy at the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, said Afghans were ready to embrace a democratic system of government.

“If one interprets a democratic system as one in which there are opportunities for ordinary people to change their rulers without bloodshed, then I have never met an ordinary Afghan who thinks that is a bad idea,” he said.

Local observers were needed to pick up on fraudulent activities at the next election, which in 2009 included a well-known instance in which voters did not place votes in a particular ballot box themselves.

“All 600 votes were divided into batches of 100 with a rubber band around them,” Maley pointed out.

The 2014 election would signal whether Afghanistan would move towards a brighter future, “or lapse back towards things we have seen in the past,” he added.

Michael Keating, from the London-based independent think tank Chatham House, maintained the time was right for foreign military forces to withdraw from Afghanistan, because the country stood a better chance of sorting its problems out than ever before.

“I cannot tell you how riotously free the political environment is in Kabul right now,” he said.

“Despite humanitarian and other problems, there has been real socio-economic progress.”

'Afghanistan in Southwest Asia: influences and challenges' was supported by the Research School of Asia and the Pacific at ANU, and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Article by Belinda Cranston.