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Afghan election: It's all about Karzai

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-08-18 09:59

KABUL: He was once the toast of the town, a charming, urbane Afghan tribal leader voicing Jeffersonian ideals in perfect English, gliding effortlessly through the halls of power in Washington and the baking tents of the Afghan desert.

Since his rise in 2001, President Hamid Karzai's image has changed. Western critics now accuse him of weak leadership, cutting deals with warlords, tolerating drug smugglers and ignoring rampant corruption that has fed the Taliban insurgency.

Despite his critics both in Afghanistan and abroad, the 51-year-old Karzai appears the favorite in Thursday's presidential election, although a late surge by his chief rival, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, could force a runoff if none of nearly 40 candidates wins a majority.

Karzai's alliances with regional powerbrokers and his origins as a Pashtun, the biggest Afghan ethnic community, have placed him in a strong position despite widespread public dissatisfaction with the government.

A survey by the US-funded International Republican Institute and released on Friday shows Karzai leading a field of three dozen candidates with 44 percent, against 26 percent for his closest rival.

Karzai and his main rival Abdullah Abdullah entered the last day of campaigning for the Afghan presidency yesterday with the outcome hanging on the threat of violence and the clout of old militia chiefs.

A former Uzbek militia leader, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, jetted back to the country overnight from exile in Turkey, perhaps to deliver enough support among his followers to swing the election for Karzai in a single round.

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Polls have shown Karzai firmly in the lead with about 45 percent of the vote, but not by enough to win an outright majority and avoid a run-off against Abdullah, a former foreign minister with strong support in the north of the country.

The prospect of violence could hurt Karzai's first-round chances. Taliban militants have vowed to disrupt the poll, which could hurt turn-out, especially in the Pashtun south, which overwhelmingly supported Karzai in the past.

Abdullah, whose campaign has built surprisingly strong momentum on the strength of popular rallies, addressed huge crowds in Kabul and the southern province of Paktia on the last official day of campaigning.

Muscle behind incumbent

Karzai has secured the endorsements of ethnic chieftains and former militia bosses, but that tactic has raised the alarm of Western donors fearful of a return to power by warlords whose factional fighting in the 1990s tore the country apart.

Few of the former militia chiefs are viewed with more suspicion by the West than Dostum, a whisky-drinking ex-leftist general whose militia repeatedly changed sides during the civil war. Dostum won 10 percent of the vote during the last election in 2004, and his support could tip the balance for Karzai.

But many Afghans and foreign diplomats worry that backroom deals made to secure Karzai's re-election could restore old guerrilla bosses to positions of patronage and power and set back efforts to improve how the country is run.

"Government positions, cabinet or provincial posts, will be distributed on the basis of the percentage of the votes they bring to Karzai," said Mohammad Qasim Akhgar, an Afghan writer and analyst. "I think this is clear fact and a done deal."

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