Barrister Harun ur Rashid
Many of the 8 candidates who ran for president on April 5 are familiar faces in Afghan politics. The incumbent President Hamid Karzai was not in the race since he could not run for a third term. The successful candidate is expected to assume the office sometime in June.
Observers say the main contest would be among three candidates Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, Dr. Zalmai Rasul and Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai.
Abdullah Abdullah who is an ophthalmologist, a former foreign minister, came second in the 2009 presidential election with more than 30 per cent of the vote but withdrew from a head-to-head runoff with the incumbent Hamid Karzai, claiming he lacked confidence that the ballot would be free and fair.
Dr. Zalmai Rasul is also a medical doctor by training and worked in the past for the exiled monarch Zahir Shah and returned to Afghanistan in 2002. Some say that President Hamid Karzai would be able to influence events in the country through Zalmai Rasul, if elected.
Ghani, a former finance minister, ranked fourth in the 2009 presidential election, behind Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah. Ghani has been a leading advocate for foreign investment (rather than foreign aid) as a tool for economic development and the eradication of poverty.
Female candidates & Taliban threats
Afghans have been particularly intrigued by Ms. Sarobi’s emergence as a running mate for the presidential candidate Zalmay Rassoul. She is not just a token name on a presidential ticket, but a campaign draw in her own right, as her stirring speeches have added a much-needed shot of crowd appeal to Mr. Rassoul’s otherwise staid and low-energy campaign. Ms. Sarobi was a former governor of Bamian province of Afghanistan.
And women have been far more visible and vocal during this campaign than in previous elections at least in urban areas. The candidates have made much more of an effort to address women’s rights in their speeches and debates.
Furthermore presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani recently held a rally in Kabul attended by several thousand women. While they were all wearing headscarves, there was not a full-length burqa to be seen in the crowd. And did something highly unusual in Afghanistan: Ghani let his wife, Rula, a Lebanese-American Christian, address the crowd.
The Taliban have threatened to attack Afghanistan’s crucial presidential election warning that anyone who goes near “electoral offices, voting booths, rallies and campaigns” is putting their life in danger.
“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan encourages all its countrymen to avoid becoming victims of the enemy conspiracies in the upcoming elections process; reject it wholly and do not put yourselves in danger,” the statement said. “If anyone still persists on participating then they are solely responsible of any loss in the future.”
“It [the US] will install a head of state who appears to be an Afghan but will have American mentality, vision, deeds, creed and ideals while openly being in conflict with the clear teachings of the sacred religion of Islam,” the statement said.
Threats ignored: Fair voting?
Almost two thirds of Afghans are younger than 25 years, and millions have come of age during the 12 years since U.S. troops and development dollars arrived. Despite a violent Taliban insurgency and rampant corruption, young Afghans have enjoyed unprecedented freedoms and opportunities, and many of them have voted for the first time to preserve them.
“We are not scared,” declared election officials while the attack on the election headquarters was underway. “That is our message to the Taliban.”
A poll conducted by the Free and Fair Election Foundation found that more than 75% respondents planned to vote, even though faith in the electoral process was said to be decreasing.
For young Afghans in particular, the vital question is less which candidate wins than whether the election comes off without triggering greater conflict.
Saad Mohseni, who heads the Moby Group that includes the popular Tolo TV, said their polls indicate the number of undecided voters may be as high as 30-40%.
There has been some good old-fashioned campaigning. “One of the candidates came down my street and said ‘Hello, I’m running for president and this is why you should vote for me’,” one young man in Kabul marvelled. “So I decided to vote for him.”
Dr Abdullah Abdullah has warned of “massive industrial scale” fraud. Such cries of foul play could imperil the entire process. There is concern about ballot stuffing, ghost polling stations – the kind of cheating that has marked every election since 2004.
There is also worry that the number of election cards in circulation vastly outnumbers the number of registered voters.
Afghanistan’s embryonic democracy could be overwhelmed by faulty process and thus could damage the legitimacy the outcome of the election results at a time when a clear convincing mandate is crucial for whoever takes charge at a most difficult time.
US troop withdrawal
The US Troops withdrawal and Bilateral Security Agreement with the US has also raised many questions. One of the most important reasons to station US troops in Afghanistan is that a force of any size guarantees Washington’s influence in Afghanistan which shares borders with Central Asian countries, backyard of Russia. It would allow the U.S. ambassador and senior military commander to maintain close ties with the Afghan government.
Ryan Crocker, former U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan, reportedly explained that in both countries, the presence of American troops gave him and the senior military commander a reason and purpose to request frequent meetings with the head of the government.
However on 15th March, Afghanistan’s departing president, Hamid Karzai, during his final address to parliament in Kabul, reportedly said Afghan troops no longer needed international help to defend the country. The President reiterated he won’t sign Bilateral Security Agreement with the US after the NATO troops withdraw at the end of 2014 from Afghanistan. Under the proposed agreement the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan would be around 10,000 only to train the Afghan armed forces.
Meanwhile all the candidates have said they would support the agreement, but a successor will likely not take office until June 2014 at the earliest, thereby constraining the U.S. and NATO force planning process. Fearing instability after 2014, some ethnic and political faction leaders are reviving their militia forces should the international drawdown lead to a major Taliban push to retake power.
Aid & regional power play
Afghanistan will likely remain dependent on foreign aid indefinitely according to observers. Through the end of FY2013, the United States provided nearly $93 billion in assistance to Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, of which more than $56 billion has been to equip and train Afghan forces.
The appropriated U.S. aid for FY2014 is over $6.1 billion, including $4.7 billion to train and equip the Afghan Security forces, and the FY2015 request is similar to the FY2014-appropriated levels. Administration officials have pledged to Afghanistan that economic aid requests for Afghanistan are likely to continue roughly at recent levels through at least FY2017.
Pakistan: Afghanistan’s stability has depended on cooperation from Pakistan. But Afghanistan President Karzai accuses Pakistan of destabilizing its stability by assisting the Taliban.
Since Nawaz Sharif came back into office as Prime Minister in June 2013, he sent a high level envoy, foreign policy advisor Sartaj Aziz, to Afghanistan, and Karzai visited Pakistan during August 26-7, 2013. That visit produced some results in September 2013 when Pakistan promised to release several moderate Taliban figures, including Mullah Bradar.
Pakistan accuses India of using nine consulates in Afghanistan to spread Indian influence in Afghanistan. According to Afghan officials, India has four consulates (in the major cities of Qandahar, Jalalabad, Mazar-e-Sharif, and Herat) and no security presence in Afghanistan.
Iran: As a longer term objective, Iran seeks to exert its historic influence over western Afghanistan, which was once part of the Persian Empire and to protect Afghanistan’s Shiite and other Persian-speaking minorities.
In October 2010, Karzai acknowledged accepting about $2 million per year in cash payments from Iran, but Iran reportedly ceased the payments after the Karzai government went ahead with the Strategic Partnership Agreement with the United States in May 2012.
India: The interests and activities of India in Afghanistan are the inverse of those of Pakistan: India’s goals are to deny Pakistan “strategic depth” in Afghanistan, to deny Pakistan the ability to block India from trade and other connections to Central Asia through Afghanistan and beyond, and to prevent militants in Afghanistan from attacking Indian targets in Afghanistan.
India has stressed its economic aid activities in the country, showcased by its hosting of a June 28, 2012, meeting in New Delhi to discuss investment and economic development in Afghanistan.
India perceives as a major threat of Al Qaeda’s association with radical Islamic organizations in Pakistan, such as LET (Laskhar-e-Tayyiba, or Army of the Righteous), one of the groups that was formed in Pakistan to challenge India’s control of part of the disputed territories of Jammu and Kashmir. Some of these groups have committed major acts of terrorism in India, including the terrorist attacks in Mumbai in November 2008 and in July 2011.
India’s growing strategic relationship with the Afghan government reflects India’s concerns about Pakistani influence in post-2014 Afghanistan. India, which supported the Northern Alliance which opposed the Taliban in the mid-1990s, has stepped up its contacts with those factions to discuss possible contingencies in the event of an Afghan settlement deal with the Taliban.
Stable Afghan possible?
Both the international community and the Afghan people are sacrificing blood and treasure to create a stable Afghanistan and are hoping that the new President will be able deal with the problems in the country.
Observers say that Afghanistan will remain politically unstable as the Taliban has already established safe areas in the country. Karzai also said the war in Afghanistan was “imposed” on his nation, a reference to the US-led invasion, now in its 13th year, which ousted the Taliban. He also called on the Taliban to join the peace process, and reportedly accused Pakistan of protecting the group’s leadership.
If the election is found to be free and fair, it will determine whether the gains of the American era in the country will be sustained after most U.S. troops go home in December. If not, Afghanistan may slip back into the past.
The writer is former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.
Source: Weekly Holiday
