Many Hopes Ride on Afghan Elections

Pity Janbazz Sultani, one of the more than two dozen men and women who hope to become Afghanistan’s first democratically elected president.

To get on the ballot, Sultani’s campaign must collect copies of 10,000 supporters’ voter registration cards by Sunday -- this in a country where Kalashnikov rifles vastly outnumber functioning copy machines. After proving he’s a bona fide candidate, the soft-spoken economist must figure out how to barnstorm across the nation, even though banditry and terrorism make it unsafe to leave the capital.

Finally, Sultani will have to compete against incumbent President Hamid Karzai, a man whose picture adorns government buildings across Afghanistan and who enjoys the protection of U.S. commandos and the support of President Bush and -- according to a recent poll -- about two-thirds of all Afghans.

“This election will be a good campaign if the international community supports this, if they don’t just want a showcase,” said Sultani, who hopes to win support for his efforts to end factional violence and boost the economy.

After months of mounting violence against poll workers and several postponements, Afghanistan’s interim government has set the presidential election for Oct. 9. The election is expected to hand Bush a foreign policy coup as he heads to his own showdown at the polls. Afghan parliamentary elections have been pushed back to April.

With an estimated 9.8 million possible voters, the country has achieved the remarkable feat of registering 7 million, 40% of them women. But the violence and the government’s inability to disarm the warlords who control much of the countryside have meant that Afghanistan has had to scale back expectations.

Most observers agree that few challengers have a chance against Karzai, especially given the tight window for campaigning in a country in which it takes days to travel between provinces.

“We are not talking about a perfect process here,” said Manoel de Almeida e Silva, the spokesman for the United Nations mission. “Nothing is perfect in Afghanistan.”

All agree that the two biggest problems center on guns.

Recent weeks have seen a series of attacks on election workers and registered voters. Last month, in several incidents, Taliban fighters slaughtered at least 18 people after discovering voting cards on them or for doing electoral work. On July 5, militants collected and burned the voting cards of women in a village in Paktia province.

The largest numbers of unregistered Afghans live in the militant strongholds of the south and southeast. Although the U.N. says it plans to concentrate its registration process there at the end of the month, the situation is so bad that the presidential election has been canceled in three districts.

The U.S. military has vowed to step up operations against militants trying to disrupt the election.

De Almeida e Silva, the U.N. spokesman, said maintaining security on election day would be tough.

“Registration is easier to handle because not everything happens at the same time,” he said. “On polling day, that is a huge task, because we’re talking about the whole country.”

But De Almeida e Silva and Karzai say an even greater threat is the inability of the government to disarm the militias that run much of the nation.

Karzai had pledged to disarm the militias, a tough promise to fulfill because many are loyal to warlords whom the president has appointed to his own Cabinet. By this month, 40% of the militias’ weapons were to have been turned in. Instead, the government has recovered about 15% of the country’s estimated firearms.

The fear that warlords would use force to win seats led to the postponement of the parliamentary elections. Officials hope that the nationwide presidential contest will be less vulnerable to strong-arm tactics.

Grant Kippen, resident director here of the National Democracy Institute, said he believed that a presidential election was feasible but cautioned that it was just the first step.

“We won’t know until we have the election whether it’s too soon,” Kippen said.

Sayed Gailani, a former mujahedin who plans to run against Karzai, said the elections should not be held before complete disarmament and that a president and parliament should be selected at the same time.

What’s more, he said, Karzai should step aside rather than enjoy the advantages of unelected incumbency.

“President Karzai is sitting inside the presidential palace. He has everything he needs from the government. He has every news agency in his hands,” Gailani said. “There is nothing for the other candidates.”

In fact, Gailani and several other challengers hope to coalesce around a unity candidate to strengthen their position. “Even though we know this election is illegal, just to show democracy, we will try our best not to let Karzai be the only hero in Afghanistan,” he said.

Karzai spokesman Jawed Ludin scoffed at the notion that the election was stacked. He said Karzai has vowed not to use government resources to campaign. His popularity is just a reflection of the people’s awareness that he is on their side and a longing for stability, Ludin said.

“In the minds of many people, President Karzai does represent the image of Afghanistan of the future, not Afghanistan of the past,” Ludin said. “He stands for peace.”

That’s certainly how Nazir, 55, a farmer in a war-ravaged area just south of Kabul, feels.

Nazir, who goes by one name, pulled up his shirt to show a stomach scarred by bullets. “Karzai is the best,” he said. “Every time I can give my vote to President Karzai, I will, because he’s the only one I know and because I now have peace.”

In Kabul, Shamsuddin, 22, was slightly more measured. “The only one who’s interesting is Karzai,” the pharmacist said. “He has done better than so many others. But the promises he first gave us when he came” -- disarmament and summer elections -- “have fallen short.”

North of the capital, residents of the village of Senjed Darah groused about the continuing hold of the warlords, through whom government and Western aid is funneled. The commanders keep large portions of the wheat and cooking oil that should go to the farmers.

But among a group of several men, every one said he would back the president, even though Karzai’s Cabinet includes several warlords. The village elders have been talking up the president, and locals said they had not even heard of any challengers. They have other worries.

Abdul Samad, 37, spent years fighting the Soviets and then the Taliban. He lost his house just before the 2001 war that toppled that fundamentalist militia; now he, his wife and young son sleep in a half-finished home while he tries to eke out a living from his small plot of land.

Samad said he would back Karzai -- “I have to, because there is no better choice.” But his enthusiasm was decidedly tempered.

“More important to me is to have a house for my family. I’ve fought for years against our enemies, and now I’m stuck.”