Posted on 10/08/2004 5:53:58 AM PDT by OESY
GHAZNI, Afghanistan, Oct. 5 - "Don't be harsh to the people!" President Hamid Karzai beseeched his security detail, which was bearing down on an overly eager crowd with sticks and automatic weapons. "They will calm themselves!"
Below the stage, white pigeons meant to symbolize peace were tentatively stepping out of their coop. Soon Afghanistan's president tried to do the same.
"If you sit in your place, I will come say hello to each one of you," Mr. Karzai told the surging crowd, and then he marched off the stage toward the throng. He did not get far before his guards intervened.
"I came to say hello to each of you, but the security people turned me back," he said. "So what should I do?"
The American-driven security that separates him from the populace has come to define Mr. Karzai, the front-runner this Saturday in Afghanistan's first presidential election.
He spends most of his time confined in the palace compound in Kabul, where he takes nightly loops for exercise. When he leaves, he is accompanied by an armada of DynCorp Inc. guards - one of whom slapped a government minister who got too close in a recent trip to the north - and, at this rally, American attack helicopters.
Mr. Karzai was so frustrated after a trip to Gardez was aborted because of a rocket attack that he sneaked out with two guards to a neighborhood in Kabul, evoking a fablelike image of a king so eager to be among his people that he disguises himself as a commoner.
For many Afghans, as a result, Mr. Karzai has become an insubstantial figure, clearer for what he stands for than for who he is or what he has done. To supporters who will vote for him on Saturday, he represents three years of relative peace and national unity, as well as the leader of an important Afghan tribe. Opponents see him as weak, beholden to the West or incapable of fulfilling the expectations they had for reconstruction.
Given how little-known most of his 15 rivals are, the election is largely a referendum on the perception of Mr. Karzai himself, and the record of the international community - that has backed him.
Supporters and opponents say that if, as expected, Mr. Karzai wins Saturday or in a second round of voting that would follow if no candidate secures a majority, it may represent his last chance to assert himself as a leader rather than a figurehead.
He will have to use his electoral mandate to deliver the changes most Afghans still await, or face their disappointment or worse.
"I hope, with newfound legitimacy, he feels his power and is supported by the international community to provide more visionary leadership than we've seen to date," said Andrew Wilder of the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, an independent research group based in Kabul.
Mr. Karzai was chosen as interim leader at a conference in Bonn in November 2001, as Afghanistan's Taliban rulers were falling before the American-led invasion. Out of the same conference came a coalition government of the country's rival factions and ethnic groups that has come to define his rule.
Mr. Karzai's selection was backed by the United States in part because he was a member of the Pashtun ethnic majority, which has ruled Afghanistan for most of its history. He is the chief of the Popolzai tribe, and had remained active in Afghan politics from exile in Pakistan.
From 1992 to 1994, he was deputy foreign minister in the Afghan government formed by the mujahedeen after the fall of the Communist government. He initially supported the Taliban, the fundamentalist Islamic militia that took over in the late 1990's, believing they could restore order, before eventually turning against them. He blames the Taliban for assassinating his father in Quetta, Pakistan, in 1999.
Mr. Karzai brought innate advantages that continue to bolster him. He has no reputation for "blood on his hands," noted Mr. Wilder, and he is not seen as personally corrupt. But Mr. Karzai came out of what Mr. Wilder calls a "deal-making culture," a tradition of tribal politics that aims more for conciliation than confrontation. "I think at times he doesn't recognize his own power," Mr. Wilder said. "I think for the last two and a half years he's been unnecessarily risk-averse." The result was what Mr. Wilder called a "business as usual" agenda in which corruption took root and entrenched powers held sway.
In a sense, Mr. Karzai's record is that of the United States, and the international community as a whole. During his tenure, Afghanistan has made strides in some areas. Five million children are in school, 40 percent of them girls, and about three million refugees have returned.
The Kabul-Kandahar road has been rebuilt, cutting travel time between the cities to less than a day, and work has started on other roads. A Unicef study shows that some indicators of child health, such as infant mortality, have marginally improved in the last four years. Factional fighting has flared, government ministers have been killed, a Taliban insurgency has taken hundreds of lives, but the country as a whole has remained at peace. After 23 years of war, Afghans say that cannot be taken for granted.
But many parts of the country, particularly in the south and southeast, have seen few benefits. Mr. Karzai has failed to rein in blatant corruption among members of his cabinet or below, and has been slow to disarm the many armed militias and defend average Afghans against their abuses.
He made his first tough decisions this year, dropping Muhammad Fahim, the defense minister, as his running mate and removing Ismail Khan as governor of Herat. On both cases he was prodded, some say steeled, by foreign diplomats.
Even the Bush administration says that Mr. Karzai's government has failed to check the country's opium production. The illicit drug trade is enriching many commanders Mr. Karzai says he opposes, creating security threats, and probably financing the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Mr. Karzai's close relationship with his American overseers has also proved tricky. To those Afghans who believe the international community's continued presence is essential to rebuilding their country, it is an asset. To others, concerned about foreign interference in Afghan affairs or about the behavior of American forces hunting the Taliban and Al Qaeda, it is a liability.
Haji Nazim, a leader of the Zadran tribe in the southeast, said his tribe would vote for Mr. Karzai because the patriarch of a respected religious family had told them to. "Otherwise we would never vote for Karzai," he said, citing the lack of reconstruction and transgressions by American soldiers in his area.
The campaign period has only strengthened the perception that it is the Afghan-born American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, and not Mr. Karzai, who is the real power here. Mr. Khalilzad has met with candidates - they say to persuade them to withdraw, a charge he denies - and orchestrated road openings that appear designed to strengthen Mr. Karzai's support.
The ambassador did little to hide his role in removing Mr. Khan from Herat. This week, while Mr. Karzai went to Germany to accept a human rights award, Mr. Khalilzad flew to Herat and announced that Mr. Khan had agreed to join the government in Kabul.
A recent cartoon in an Afghan newspaper showed a trembling Mr. Karzai in Mr. Khalilzad's arms as his campaign rivals pranced in a boxing ring. "Don't worry," the caption had Mr. Khalilzad saying, "I'm the referee for this match."
Count Chocula is running for President of Afghanistan?
The 21st century awaits.
The fact that there is even analysis of the election is a huge victory.
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