Afghanistan, and its president, in waiting

KABUL — It’s been a season of surprises for Afghanistan election watchers. Six months ago the race was wide open and President Hamid Karzai was a political corpse. By mid-May the resurrected Karzai was a shoo-in, and his rivals an uncoordinated and constantly squabbling pack of no-hopers.

Then one of the contenders emerged with what many saw as a real chance. Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, Karzai’s former foreign minister, ran a strong campaign that, for a period of a few weeks, seemed able to change the dynamic. (Here is GlobalPost’s guide to the candidates.)

But with just days to go before the Aug. 20 polls, the results of the ballot are no longer seriously in doubt. Veteran Afghan hands agree: Karzai will stay in office for another five years. The only suspense surrounds voter turnout, ballot box fraud and possible violence after the results are announced. Tuesday morning, just two days before the elections, three bombings ripped through the heart of Kabul.

To a large extent, the elections seem to have been reduced to a feel-good exercise for the foreign community, which is at some pains to prove that its eight-year presence in the country has not been in vain. Last summer, diplomats were speaking in lowered tones about the impossibility of conducting a valid poll in a country that was fast degenerating into chaos. Then came the decision, anointed by the United Nations: the elections will go forward because they must.

U.N. Special Representative Kai Eide has already sought to lower expectations, saying that the poll is “not perfect.” No one speaks any longer of “free and fair” elections — now international experts are content with “credible.”

For many Afghans, the whole idea was absurd from the beginning. With huge swaths of the country too volatile to establish secure polling stations; campaign teams bent on bribery and intimidation; and a host of candidates with no answers to the country’s seemingly insurmountable problems, the voters have very few expectations from the exercise.

“Everyone knows the next president will be chosen in Washington,” is the most common refrain heard on the streets of Kabul, Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif and other major cities.

In the villages, people are silent: many have been threatened with violence if their community does not vote en masse for one or another of the candidates.

The Taliban are vowing to disrupt the elections, and have issued night letters prohibiting people from voting. Those found with the telltale mark — voters are asked to dip their index finger in a bottle of indelible ink — could lose a digit or, worse, their head.

Most observers expect large-scale fraud, especially in the more remote areas of the country. Reports have trickled in that local leaders have been making copies of voter registration cards — the only document needed to cast a ballot. As many as 20 percent of polling stations will be located in the homes of tribal elders, with few or no monitors. As long as they have copies of the cards, these elders can cast as many ballots as they like for the candidate of their choice.

In many areas, that candidate seems to be Karzai. While deeply unpopular with the electorate, he still commands authority among local leaders, many of whom will be looking for post-election rewards for delivering the vote.

But Karzai may not be able to pull off a first-round victory. According to Afghanistan’s Election law, a candidate must get over 50 percent of the vote to win. Failing that, the top two vote-getters will face off, most likely in early October.

There are growing signs that the international community is readying itself for just such an eventuality. Election experts say that preparations are already underway for a runoff, and a U.S.-funded opinion survey published last week by the little-known firm Glevum Associates set the stage. Karzai, the poll revealed, had 45 percent support among the voters – strong, but not enough to achieve a first-round victory.

The Independent Election Commission is also preparing for the runoff. Spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor, in conversation with colleagues, said as much.

“We will have work for another few months,” he was overheard to remark.

The Contenders

The original cast of characters has almost all faded away: in February, GlobalPost did a list of likely front-runners, many of whom eventually decided not throw their hats in the ring.

Ali Ahmad Jalali, an early favorite, did not declare his candidacy. Insiders say that the former Interior Minister was not willing to risk his American passport, which he would have had to surrender in order to run.

Former Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad also opted out; after a March conference in Dubai, during which it seemed certain he was preparing to declare his candidacy, the Afghan-American contented himself with a behind-the-scenes role.

Gul Agha Sherzai, the tough and controversial governor of Nangahar province, pulled out the day before the deadline for announcing one’s candidacy. He had everything in place, including his vice-presidential picks. But after a long meeting with the president, Sherzai announced that he was withdrawing.

Interior Minister Hanif Atmar had also been widely rumored to be in the running; he did not, in the end, make any decisive moves towards becoming a candidate. But at 41, Atmar has plenty of time for a bid later on.

By the May deadline, 43 candidates had registered their intention to run. Two were disqualified, four have since dropped out, with as many as 25 more expected to follow suit before election day.

But most of the contenders never had a real chance; instead, they were hoping to gain enough exposure and popular support to parlay into a lucrative or powerful post in the new administration.

Only six candidates really matter: Karzai, Abdullah, former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, firebrand reformer Ramazan Bashar Dost, parliamentary speaker Mirwais Yasini and and former Taliban commander, Mullah Abdul Salam Rocketi.

But in the end, after elections, the country is likely to be right back where it started: all problems, no solutions. The elections will almost certainly turn out to be all sound and fury, after all. 

The following profiles were prepared by GlobalPost Afghanistan correspondent Jean MacKenzie and Executive Editor Charles M. Sennott, recently returned from a reporting trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Final Six
	President Hamed Karzai: Karzai has been leading Afghanistan since late 2001, when he was hand-picked to head the Interim Government. In October, 2004, he was elected president in a stunning first-round victory, generating a burst of optimism and faith in the future that has since almost entirely dissipated. Karzai has run a lackluster campaign, making few appearances, and seeming unfocused on the few occasions he did speak publicly. He is almost certain to win the election, thanks to a countrywide effort by his campaigners, who have been cajoling and arm-twisting in almost equal measure in order to secure the vote. But he will have a weak mandate and lukewarm international support, boding ill for his second term.
	Dr. Abdullah: Former Foreign Minister Dr. Abdullah has run a surprisingly strong campaign, and burst to the front of the contender queue in July. He has wide support in the North and in the Panjshir Valley, but his close association with the late Ahmad Shah Massoud is likely to raise some hackles in the Pashtun-dominated south. Abdullah was Massoud’s spokesman when the latter was the foremost of the mujaheddin commanders, and he has exploited that connection to the hilt in his campaign posters, many of which feature the two men together. Massoud, an ethnic Tajik, is widely reviled among Pashtuns. Abdullah who is Pashtun on his father’s side and Tajik on his mother’s, seeks to bridge the ethnic divide.
	Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai: The brilliant but temperamental Ghani was expected to put up a strong showing, but his campaign has fallen flat, despite the appearance of prominent democratic strategist James Carville on his campaign team. Ghani, a former Finance Minister, is widely respected for his intellect, as well as his managerial skills. He is credited with getting Afghanistan on its feet after the collapse of the Taliban regime in late 2001. But Ghani lacks the instincts of a politician, and has had little popular appeal. He does not have the strong tribal base that has propped Karzai up in the south, or the mujaheddin connections that have given Abdullah a leg up in the North. The only question for Ghani is whether he wants to join either of the frontrunners, with the promise of a prominent role in the next administration.
	Ramazan Bashar Dost: A former minister of planning, Bashar Dost has made a big impression on his fellow countrymen with his bare-bones campaign style and often outrageous comments. In his first weeks of campaigning he spent just a few hundred dollars; he rides around the country in a rickety truck, meeting with voters in some of the most volatile areas of the country. He scorns luxury and lambastes his opponents for their lavish lifestyles. Among his more outlandish campaign promises was his vow to “liberate” the ancient town of Isfahan from Iran, and his pledge to create a commando squad of 5,000 to “deal with” neighboring heads of state should they become troublesome. Bashar Dost attracts the classic protest vote: those who cast their ballot for him have no expectation that he can win. They just want to show their anger and disaffection with the government and the other mainstream candidates. Bashar Dost is expected to come in 3rd or 4th.
	Mirwais Yasini: Mirwais Yasini sat cross legged on a carpet in his garden in Kabul and poured tea for a small group of men who listened to him being interviewed by GlobalPost. It was late at night after a big dinner and the night air was full of stars and possibility. The current First Deputy Speaker of the Lower House of Parliament and majority party leader, Yasini, 48, said he was convinced he could win this election although the independent polls have given him no reason to have such confidence. “I am one of the few politicians who can claim that he came up from the people and was not parachuted in here. And I am proud of that,” said Yasini, an ethnic Pashtun who was a young mujahedeen fighting against the Soviet Union and also opposed the Taliban when it was in power. After winning popular election, he was also appointed to several different high-level posts, including head of the counter-narcotics department in the Afghan government.
	Mullah Rocketi: He always lived up to his name. He was dubbed Mullah Rocketi because of his precision in firing rocket-propelled grenades on Soviet tanks for the mujahadeen, and then again in the mid-1990s when the Taliban took Kabul and he was named a military commander under the Taliban. The name stuck. But now Mullah Abdul Salam Rocketi is running for president of Afghanistan. Rocketi (he legally changed his name) is one of the former members of the Taliban regime who President Hamid Karzai appointed to parliament. He is the repentant Taliban, the leadership that saw the error of the movement’s ways in providing support for Al Qaeda and who is publicly willing to support the new government and reject the ideology of the Taliban. In 2007, Mullah Rocketi encountered Sally Goodrich, a Vermont school teacher who lost her son on Sept. 11, 2001, and built a girls’ school in Logar to honor his memory. Rocketi listened quietly to Goodrich tell her story and told her “mistakes were made.” And he said he was sorry for what happened to her son. But Mullah Rocketi’s arc of life has left him alienated from his former brothers in arms in the Taliban insurgency. And so they have targeted him for killing. On July 21, the Taliban attacked a gathering where he was speaking as a candidate in Baghlan Province in the north of Afghanistan. One civilian was killed and two others were injured. Rocketi narrowly escaped but is not expected to be a front-runner in the final count of the vote.