Rocky road to Afghan polls

When they vote for a new President on April 5, the people of Afghanistan will set in motion the first peaceful transition of power in their country after the ouster of the Taliban. Yet the only certainty about the presidential election is that the incumbent, Hamid Karzai, will not be a contender, having served the constitutional limit of two presidential terms.

The presidential electoral field is crowded. When nominations ended on October 6, 2013, there were 27 candidates. Of these 16 were disqualified within weeks by the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan. In March 2014, President Karzai’s elder brother Qayoum Karzai retired in favour of former foreign minister Zalmai Rassoul. With another two retiring subsequently, eight candidates are now left in the fray.

The three serious contenders as of now are former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, World Bank economist and former finance minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, and another former foreign minister Zalmai Rassoul. Although indications are that the first two are in a neck-and-neck contest, Rassoul cannot be written off. The Afghan presidential poll is a two-round process — if no candidate is able to get 50 per cent votes in the first round then there is a second round run-off between the top two contenders.

The reasons for this are both historical and ethnic. Except Burhanuddin Rabbani — a Tajik — no non-Pushtun has ruled Afghan-istan from Kabul. Within Pushtuns too, it is the Durranis who have ruled since the days of Ahmad Shah Abdali — with the exception of Najibullah, an Ahmadzai Pushtun, and Mullah Omar, a Gilzai Pushtun. By virtue of his ethnicity, Zalmai Rassoul, a Durrani and that too from the Pushtun heartland of southern Afghanistan, has an advantage over the other two contenders. Abdullah, even though his father was a Pushtun and mother a Tajik, is considered a Tajik because of his closeness to the legendary Tajik leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was assassinated by the Taliban. Asharaf Ghani Ahmadzai is a Pushtun but from the Ahmadzai clan.

While ethnic and clan loyalties cannot be ignored in Afghanistan, Rassoul also enjoys the widespread belief that he is backed by the outgoing President. Although Hamid Karzai has not declared open support for any candidate, the withdrawal of his brother Qayoum Karzai’s candidature in favour of Rassoul has led to obvious conclusions being drawn.

Many believe that Karzai is supporting Rassoul because neither Abdullah nor Ahmadzai are likely to be proxy Presidents. Instal-ling his own brother may have been far too embarrassing, hence Rassoul as the next best choice. Though Rassoul may turn out to be his own man if elected, there are advantages for the moment in being seen as Hamid Karzai’s candidate.

Both Abdullah and Ahmadzai have claimed individually that in a free and fair election, they would both be in the second round but have expressed fears that electoral fraud might keep them out.

Consider that there are 12 million eligible voters in the country of 30 million, the number of voter registra-tion cards issued number nearly 20 million. Many claim that Rassoul could be the beneficiary of any such fraud.

In 2009, there were allegations of widespread electoral fraud when Hamid Karzai won his second elected term. In fact, the challenger Abdullah Abdullah, also a contender this time, cited the misuse of government machinery against him and refused to go into the second round. Electoral cards which are easily transferred have reportedly been up for sale for some time.

However, as there is no sitting President in the fray this time round, unlike in 2009 when he had full control over the government machinery, the scale of fraud may be less. The fear of violent street protests may also limit electoral fraud somewhat.

If two of the three top contenders compromise even at the eleventh hour, the election scene could change. Such an attempt was being made by Tajik strongman Marshal Fahim, the first vice-president of the country, when he died unexpectedly. Fahim wanted Rassoul and Abdullah to come an understanding — one withdrawing in favour of the other, with the winner appointing him Prime Minister after amending the Constitution. A power-sharing agreement of Rassoul as President and Abdullah as Prime Minister, Fahim apparently believed, would stabilise Afghanistan. He believed that even if Abdullah won in the second round, ethnic divisions would deepen and force him out within weeks. The untimely death of Fahim has eroded the chances of any such compromise.

Whoever becomes the Afghan President, and the result may not be out till May if the process goes into the second round, would be faced with two major challenges left unmet by Karzai. One is signing a Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with the United States on retaining some American troops to train the Afghan Army as well as ensuring economic aid to the country. The other is to deal with the Taliban.

Karzai has painted himself into a corner on both. After his re-election in 2009, Karzai’s relationship with the US spiralled downwards. He refused to sign the BSA and tried to legitimise this by calling a grand assembly, or Loya Jirga, on the issue. Unfortu-nately for Karzai, the Loya Jirga overwhelmingly endorsed the signing of the BSA once its members realised that US economic assistance to Afghanistan was tied to the agreement. Thereafter, Karzai laid down other preconditions which made it impossible to sign the BSA.

Fortunately, the top three candidates are unanimous about signing the agreement, realising that Afghanistan is losing its priority for the US.
On the Taliban, Karzai had hoped that after the dialogue he began in Dubai, some Taliban commanders could be persuaded to announce support for the political process and, with some face-saving conditions, the continued negotiation with the US about retaining some military trainers in the country. However, his attempt to use Taliban leader Mutassim Agha Jan as facilitator has come to nothing. This is another important reason why Karzai needs a President who would carry his agenda forward.

The writer is a journalist based in New Delhi