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Afghanistan's presidential election
Incumbent on him
Aug 13th 2009 | KABUL
From The Economist print edition
Hamid Karzai seems poised for a victory few will cheer
KICKING up dust in Kabul’s main stadium, to a tinny background
noise of Persian poetry and Muslim prayer, 10,000 Afghans
gathered on August 7th for a rare glimpse of their president,
Hamid Karzai. It was brief, too. Mr Karzai, wearing the motley
tribal garb that made him, in more hopeful times, a symbol of
national unity in a war-shattered land, arrived in a scrimmage of
foreign photographers, spoke for ten minutes and then was
bundled away.
As almost his first campaign appearance in Kabul, ahead of
presidential and provincial elections due on August 20th, this was
underwhelming. The crowd was mostly of Hazaras, members of an
organised Shia community. It included relatively few Pushtuns,
members of Afghanistan’s biggest group and Mr Karzai’s own, from
which Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgency is drawn, or Tajiks, the second-biggest—and those present
seemed unenthused. “In seven years, Karzai has given us no jobs, no factories and outside Kabul there is
no security,” said Abdul Raouf, a Tajik carpenter.
Many Afghans are disenchanted with Mr Karzai, who has ruled since America bombed the Taliban from
power in 2001; he was elected president in 2004. Yet until last week he had hardly campaigned, relying
instead on the absence of a popular Pushtun rival and deals brokered with non-Pushtun toughs. These
include Mohammad Muhaqeq, the main Hazara strongman, Rashid Dostum, a feared Uzbek warlord, and
Mr Karzai’s forbidding Tajik running-mate, Mohammad Fahim. Mr Karzai has also enlisted as an adviser
Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, an Islamist militant who welcomed Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan in 1996. These
choices have not delighted the already disaffected donors who prop up Mr Karzai’s corrupt regime.
His main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister of mixed Pushtun-Tajik blood (but
considered Tajik), has campaigned hard. Allegedly flush with Iranian money, Mr Abdullah has held rallies
across Afghanistan, including the insurgency-ridden south. Unlike the president, Mr Abdullah and another
candidate, Ashraf Ghani, a former finance minister with strong American but little Afghan support, have
proposed interesting policies, including during a televised debate from which Mr Karzai backed out. To
correct this, the president was expected to take part in another debate on August 16th.
Though under pressure, Mr Karzai is still firm favourite to win, if perhaps without an outright majority.
That would lead to a run-off between the top two candidates, set for October 1st—assuming they do not,
as some pundits predict, instead strike a deal. An opinion poll released this week gave Mr Karzai 45% of
decided votes and Mr Abdullah 25%. Among the other 39 candidates, Ramazan Bashardost, an eccentric
Hazara who campaigns in a taxi, got 9%, and Mr Ghani 4%.
Yet much about this election is uncertain, starting with Afghans’ interest in it. The poll found that twothirds
considered the election “very important”. But grizzled Afghanistan hands claim to detect a good deal
of apathy, especially in Pushtun areas. Nor is it clear how many Pushtuns will dare to vote: the Taliban
and other Pushtun militants have condemned the poll. For extra intimidation, this week saw some
spectacular violence. Taliban briefly captured police headquarters in Logar and Kunduz provinces. The
electoral commission says around 500 of almost 7,000 voting-stations will be unable to open. But there
are many more where observers may fear to tread. A parliamentarian from Helmand says no one will vote
outside that violent province’s two biggest towns.
That could lead to Pushtun disenfranchisement and fraud. A common belief that the election commission is
in league with Mr Karzai reinforces fears of the latter. So has a massive over-registration of voters,
especially of non-existent women by their self-declared male relatives. By one estimate, 3m of 17.5m
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