Vol. 73/No. 34      September 7, 2009

In 2001 a United Nations-sponsored conference appointed Karzai head of an “interim” government, following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and overthrow of the ruling Taliban. Karzai had been a commander in one of the factions that fought the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and later the Taliban. He became president in a 2004 election.

U.S. officials, including President Barack Obama, have expressed displeasure with Karzai and the conduct of the war in Afghanistan. As he has grown more and more unpopular and isolated, Karzai has reached out to warlords in various parts of the country in a bid to get enough votes to win the election.

He invited Abdul Rashid Dostum to campaign for him. Dostum had been forced into exile for his brutal treatment of prisoners of war—including the slaughter of 2,000 Taliban detainees locked up in cargo containers until they died. Dostrum is from the Uzbek minority, representing 9 percent of the Afghan population. Karzai is from the dominant Pashtun nationality.

Karzai picked Mohammad Qasim Fahim, a Tajik warlord, as one of his vice-presidential candidates. Fahim is notorious for “murdering prisoners of war during the 1990s and of running private armed militias,” reported the London Times.

In a bid for votes from the Hazara minority, Karzai brought two Hazara warlords with similar records—Mohammad Mohaqiq and Karim Khalili—into his campaign.  
 
Backs antiwoman law
In late July Karzai quietly engineered the adoption of an antiwoman law supported by the most reactionary Shiite clergy. It allows Shiite men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse their husbands’ sexual demands. Shiites comprise 20 percent of the population.

After a demonstration against the law in April by some 200 people, mostly young women, Karzai said he would order a review of the legislation. On July 27 the bill was printed in the official government gazette, making it law.

Candidate Abdullah campaigned against “government corruption,” and called for giving more power to the parliament and for the election of provincial governors, who are currently appointed from Kabul, the capital.

According to a New York Times report on a campaign rally Abdullah held in the city of Herat, “He raised the biggest cheer with his promise to build up Afghan institutions so that foreign troops could go home soon.”

Like Karzai, Abdullah was a Mujahideen fighter against Soviet troops in the 1980s.When they were routed, he served in the Northern Alliance government, which held power for a time in the 1990s. He later served as foreign minister under Karzai. Abdullah’s base is among Tajiks, the second largest nationality.

The U.S. government did not endorse any candidate for president. However, according to the Wall Street Journal, U.S. diplomats looked kindly on the candidacy of Ashraf Ghani, a Pashtun, who has worked for the World Bank and was Afghanistan’s finance minister from 2002 to 2004. He is also a close associate of Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, reported the Huffington Post.  
 
Stable gov’t harder to achieve
One of the most underdeveloped countries in the world, Afghanistan lacks a cohesive capitalist class and remains divided into regions ruled by rival factions based partly on tribal ties. The challenge is more difficult than in Iraq, where there is a substantial capitalist class made up of both Sunni and Shiite Muslims, allowing Washington to pull together a more stable government.

Obama hailed the presidential election in Afghanistan as “the first democratic election run by Afghans in over three decades.” But turnout at the polls was far lower than the presidential election in 2004, when about 70 percent voted. This year, election officials estimate 40 percent to 50 percent turned out, blaming this on Taliban intimidation.

In the southern province of Wardak, “nearly all polling centers outside of district capitals had to be closed due to violence,” the Journal reported. In Uruzgan Province, only six of the 36 polling places for women were open, according to the Free and Fair Elections Foundation of Afghanistan.

Twenty-six Afghans were killed during the election and two voters had fingers chopped off, reportedly by the Taliban. If no candidate gets 50 percent of the vote on the first round, a second round will be held in October.
 
 
Related articles:
Washington, Islamabad deal blows to Pakistani Taliban
U.S. ‘capture and kill’ unit to stay in Philippines
Obama backs ‘renditions’ as torture report released  
 
 
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