Blood and bullet dog the Afghan ballot box

By Cyrus G. Robati

(May 07, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) When the 56-year-old Pashtu-speaking West wrangler, Hamid Karzai, went to Washington on May 6, his reasons were somewhat straightforward. The under-pressure Afghan leader, in power since 2001, is facing the agonising August 20 re-election - the second to be held in eight years, and now has a Tajik former warlord in addition to a Hazara former mujahideen commander by his side as vice-presidential running mates to cash in on a deeply divided opposition.

After wrangling with the White House over leading a corrupt regime and exaggerating civilian losses caused by the coalition, Mr Karzai wants to make sure he still runs a sunny chance of remaining in the presidential palace, though Americans will likely be dealing with him later.

To make that “sunny” longing come true, the Karz-born chieftain must pull up a paramount political coup by soothing the Pashtuns still seeing him as a puppet. He already did score one when he tactfully persuaded the central challenger, Nangarhar province Governor Gul Agha Sherzai, also another Pashtun, not to run. If Mr Karzai miraculously manages to re-win, Barack Obama will have to bear him for the rest of his presidency.

Other challengers are former foreign and finance ministers Abdullah Abdullah, Ashraf Ghani and perhaps even former American ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the United nations, Zalmay Khalilzad. Mr Abdullah is expected to stand as the candidate of the chief opposition bloc, the National Front, formed two years ago, always ready to unseat Mr Karzai. But the bloc appears to be as much divided, by ethnic factionalism, as the Pashtun tribes are.

Yet, the second presidential poll will help re-legitimise the fast diminishing credibility of the government and also set the tone for the 2010 parliamentary elections. However, there are colossal challenges that need to be urgently addressed for realising the goal. First, given the sagging security environment, failure of the government and the international community to deliver on governance and the most basic everyday necessities has led to voter disillusionment. Many Afghans, particularly in the insurgency-infected southern and southeastern provinces, doubt about the utility of voting with no tangible change visible in the ground situation over the last eight years.

Staring at an uncertain future, not surprisingly they question the wisdom of risking their lives to vote knowing the ever present threat of the Taliban. If the prevailing grim mood in the populace translates into low voter turnout it would eventually pose a serious credibility crisis for the new incumbent in office. Thus, the government should increase voter awareness and its significance for the future. Second, with a majority of the southern and eastern provinces -- pre-dominantly Pashtun in terms of ethnic composition -- being in the grip of the insurgency, there exist strong suspicions whether or not the elections will be held at all, and if they are held, voter turnout is expected to be abysmally low.

The problem is compounded by the fact that unlike in the previous elections, refugees in Pakistan and Iran -- who are predominately Pashtuns and fled unstable conditions in the south -- will not be registered for voting. Thus, a failure to hold a free and fair election with reasonable levels of voter participation could lead to the Pashtuns feeling disenfranchised vis-vis other ethnic groups and create social and political friction. Third, with, outside players will have to resist the temptation of attempting to influence the poll process either overtly or covertly. Fourth, the Karzai government faces the assiduous task of creating a political consensus cutting across political lines on how the state will straddle the period between May, when Mr Karzai's term ends, and August, when a new government takes office.

Thus far not only has the issue charged up the political environment but has created the potential for a constitutional crisis of sorts with the opponents proposing and Mr Karzai promptly disposing the idea of non-partisan interim leader taking charge once his term expires on May 21. The opposition, however, insists on not recognising Mr Karzai as president when he ends his term. Fifth, the elections will be a mammoth logistical, financial and security exercise, which will challenge the nascent and fragile institutions of the state to the hilt. The potential of the poll process being marred by instances of violence orchestrated by the Taliban remain high and will reinforce the popular view that the Taliban are increasingly holding sway over the country. The voter registration exercise has already come under attack from the Taliban, particularly in the southern provinces. These challenges will be magnified if none of the candidates in the fray manage to poll more than 50 percent of the votes, which would necessitate a run-off vote.

Meanwhile, with a Pakistan-Afghanistan strategy as an anti-Taliban twin-partner front rather than a single one, this is no longer “just” about the elections but the war in Afghanistan, and the growing Talibanisation in nuke-holder Pakistan trying to tackle the Taliban's “salami tactics” and stop them from spreading beyond their Pashtun strongholds into the Punjabi heartland.

The Taliban in Afghanistan are in no mood for reconciliation. Insurgencies have long lives, and this is a region that has seen countless occupiers. Most of the militants that the Marines are battling today have the motivation and patience to fight to the end. But neither is Washington in any mood for the luxury of time nor patience. There are a host of competing cases needing to be dealt with, and Mr Obama has given a string of subtle -- and a few not-so-subtle -- hints that he is not about to rest his re-election four years out on the fate of the jihadist war in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Robert Gates says there are no prospects for political reconciliation with Afghan Taliban right now, and that he has “real reservations about significant further commitments of American military, beyond what Mr Obama has already approved. He has compared the situation to the Soviet experience, saying if the Soviets were there with some 120,000 troops, did not care about civilian casualties, and still could not win, “then there is a lot we can learn from that”.

Mr Gates has called for training Afghan forces, though the defence secretary says this administration is hardly prepared to escalate the military commitment to a war that is already in the thick of things. David Howell Petraeus, who has pushed for a long-haul strategy in the region, likely, has a different sort of strategy in mind for fighting.

Difference apart, once I asked a Taliban youth in Pakistan's northern city of Peshawar back in 2007 that how he and his comrades were going to win their jihad, he smiled sheepishly, “To conquer a nation, one must know that nation's history.”

Now, speaking of that, I wonder if that is truly what Mr Gates meant by “learning a lot”.

The Writer,regular Op-Ed columnist for Journal of the Turkish Weekly, Turkey; Maldives Chronicle, the Maldives; and Pakistan Daily, Pakistan

-Sri Lanka Guardian