Posted on 08/10/2004 3:01:59 PM PDT by OESY
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 7 - Two months before Afghanistan holds its first election for president, preparations have an air of democratic bustle.
Nearly nine million eligible Afghans have registered to vote so far, several million more than expected, despite efforts by the Taliban to disrupt the process. NATO has agreed to provide extra forces to help the 18,000 American troops who are maintaining security.
The incumbent, President Hamid Karzai, and 22 opponents have registered for the race and are starting to hold rounds of news conferences and rallies.
Despite the trappings of democracy, the real decision about who will be elected president in October, and elected to Parliament next spring, will probably be made at meetings taking place right now in guest houses around town, where heavily armed guards idle outside near S.U.V.'s with tinted glass.
Inside, men who command thousands in their own private armies, some of them veterans from the wars against the Soviet Union and the Taliban, are deep in discussion.
Will they back Mr. Karzai, who has vowed, with American and international backing, to disarm them and build a unified national defense corps? Or will they form new alliances in opposition? Whichever way they choose, their soldiers, or mujahedeen, and their local communities are likely to follow their instructions at the polls.
That means that Mr. Karzai may not be the shoo-in he was thought to be, unless he works out a deal with the regional commanders and governors who have become his single biggest challenge as he tries to maintain power and build democratic institutions. Their anger at him is rising.
"Karzai was the strongest candidate," said Massouda Jalal, the only woman running for president, who came in second to Mr. Karzai in the vote for leader of the transitional administration in 2002 at the loya jirga, or national assembly. "Now he is one of the strong candidates."
Ms. Jalal and others say Mr. Karzai, whom opinion polls show to be overwhelmingly popular, may fail to win a majority of the votes and thus be forced into a runoff election. To gain the mandate to establish a strong central government, Mr. Karzai wants not only to win, but also to win big.
Mr. Karzai went so far as to drop the most powerful leader of mujahedeen from his ticket, an action that has won him praise in some quarters but anger in others.
That was the powerful defense minister and vice president, Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim, who has since led the defection from Mr. Karzai. "Karzai from now on will not have the support of the big group in the cabinet and the government that he has had in the past," said Marshal Fahim, an ethnic Tajik who is expected to take with him the support of most of the mujahedeen in the north.
Abdul Shakur Waqef Hakimi, a spokesman for Jamiat-e-Islami, one of the largest mujahedeen parties, said, "From the beginning the mujahedeen genuinely supported the government, but then Karzai made mistakes and he lost the support of the mujahedeen."
The mujahedeen are now rallying around Yunus Qanooni.
Some leaders are still making up their minds. "We have two months to see, and we will choose who serves Afghanistan best," General Abdullah, the commander of the Afghan Army's 10th Division on the western edge of Kabul, said as he looked out over tanks, military barracks and a private prison.
Under the government's disarmament program, General Abdullah was to have disarmed and disbanded his 3,500 fighters, handed over his weapons and put himself out of a job by the summer. But he refused, along with other powerful commanders around the country, and renegotiated the plan.
Now the militias, which are estimated to number 60,000 men around the country, are required to disarm only 40 percent of their men before the presidential election, something most of them can tolerate.
"Will there be disarmament?" said Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai, a presidential candidate and former deputy of one of the mujahedeen parties. "Not in six months, not in six years."
Mr. Karzai came to power with the backing of the mujahedeen leaders of the Northern Alliance, which fought the Taliban. In office he has tried to include the mujahedeen parties in his government rather than oppose them. Yet technocrats in his government warn that Afghanistan will become a narco-mafia state if he does not move against so-called warlords, because of their control of weapons and the illegal drug trade.
In an interview last month, Mr. Karzai said the commanders and their militias represented probably the greatest danger facing the country.
When Mr. Karzai made the surprise announcement on July 26 that he was choosing Ahmed Zia Massoud, the brother of the legendary resistance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, over Marshal Fahim, it was widely seen as an effort to break away from the hold of the big commanders.
The United States, which has bankrolled many of the big commanders as part of its campaign against terrorism, supported Mr. Karzai's decision to drop Marshal Fahim.
Reaction from the mujahedeen camp was swift, and Mr. Karzai suddenly found himself facing a new and strong challenge led by Mr. Qanooni, his former education minister.
Mr. Qanooni is backed by major players including Marshal Fahim; the foreign minister, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah; and another brother of Mr. Massoud, Ahmed Wali Massoud. All are Tajiks from the Panjshir Valley northeast of Kabul, a stronghold of mujahedeen who fought the Soviets and later the Taliban.
Hearing the news, many of their regional allies rapidly began arriving in Kabul, including Gen. Daoud Khan from Kunduz, Gen. Hazarat Ali from Jalalabad and Ismail Khan, the powerful governor of Herat, whom Mr. Karzai and the technocrats in his government have long wanted to remove.
All of those men have enormous influence in their regions and will certainly influence the voting. So far, they have supported the democratic process and promised to avoid violence.
Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former president, and Abdul Rab Rasoul Sayyaf, both leaders of mujahedeen parties, remain in the wings. Together they declared their support for Mr. Karzai in June, but they are taking part in discussions and have yet to endorse a candidate.
Muhammad Naseem Faqiri, the chief spokesman of Jamiat-e-Islami, said they were trying to bring the various mujahedeen parties together to reduce the number of candidates and avoid having the election go to a second round. That would suggest that they are trying to persuade the big commanders to back Mr. Karzai.
Until recently the leaders of the Northern Alliance supported Mr. Karzai. Over the months, though, a series of actions by the central government - sending in troops to control areas, putting pressure on commanders to disarm and replacing some cabinet ministers - has been seen as an effort to whittle away the power of the alliance, said Fahim Dashty, editor of the Kabul Weekly and brother-in-law of the foreign minister.
Mr. Karzai's dropping of Marshal Fahim as his running mate set off an emotional response, he said. "Now the Northern Alliance feels insulted by Karzai and his allies," he said. Their support now has to be completely renegotiated, he added.
Behind closed doors every possible deal is being gone over. Mr. Qanooni and Marshal Fahim are still talking to Mr. Karzai. "Meetings never really stopped," said one foreign official.
"Everyone is talking to everyone," said Faizullah Zaki, an aide to Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, a powerful Uzbek leader from northern Afghanistan who is also running for president. General Dostum had had approaches from all sides, Mr. Zaki said.
Mr. Karzai is expected to gain the bulk of the vote of his own Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group in the country. [An influential Pashtun mujahedeen leader, Pir Sayed Gailani, announced his support for Mr. Karzai on Aug. 8.]
Yet those close to Mr. Karzai say he will not be comfortable winning by a narrow margin and will try to bring many more onto his side before the election.
Although Marshal Fahim promised that he would ensure a nonviolent election, there remain widespread concerns that the election may be anything but free and fair. Not only do the commanders and mujahedeen remain powerful, but there are repeated Taliban attacks against election workers and concerns about government pressure in support of Mr. Karzai.
In an Asia Foundation survey of 804 people around the country, 60 percent of respondents said the buying of votes would be a problem in the election. Fifty percent said cheating in the counting of votes would be a problem.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has decided not to send a monitoring team to observe the election, because of security concerns, which means that there will be no large-scale international monitoring operation, just small teams from independent groups.
Whew. So many camels jockeying for position, it makes you dizzy. My guess is Karzai eventually wins with support from the Northern Alliance...
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