Afghan Elections Show Two Sides of Democracy

SHAMALI PLAINS, Afghanistan, Aug. 17, 2009 — -- A dozen village elders sitting in a lonely, tattered tent in the desert outside of Kabul received the U.N. election worker kindly, thumbing the mock ballot he provided featuring 41 small headshots -- the faces of every man and woman running to become Afghanistan's next president.

Election posters attached to the ropes supporting the tent rustled in the breeze.

These villagers are some of the most isolated of Afghans, nomadic Kutchi tribesmen and women who have to walk for four hours to get water. And yet Lal Mohammad Niazi, the U.N. worker, has been visiting tents just like this one for months in the run up to Afghanistan's second ever election, scheduled for Thursday.

Asked whether they plan to vote Thursday, the group of bearded men all raise their hands -- some raise two hands -- a testament to the efforts by the United Nations and the Independent Electoral Commission to reach much of this rocky, rural country and inform them about an event that President Obama has called the most important in Afghanistan this year.

But asked who they would vote for, Malik Ghundi, the tribal leader, answered for them.

"People will come to me to ask to whom they should vote; I might say Karzai, Dr. Abdullah, or Dr. Ghani," Ghundi said, referring to the Afghan president and two of his most formidable rivals. "But whatever candidate I say, they will vote accordingly."

Much of Afghan democracy is do-as-you're-told -- voting blocs created by ethnic or tribal loyalties that often determine who entire areas of the country favor. That has led the heavily favored president, Hamid Karzai, to worry about security preventing his voting bloc -- Pashtuns, who dominate southern and eastern Afghanistan -- from going to the polls.

And it is what led Dr. Abdullah Abdullah to spend one of his final days campaigning in the Panhjir Valley, where he is remembered as the lieutenant to Afghanistan's most famous and popular warlord.

As he arrived in the village of Talatkhan, the crowd surged and grabbed the candidate's seersucker jacket. A second later he was lifted up and carried into the building, like a rock star crowd-surfing onto the stage.

Afghanistan's election is, perhaps, just like any other young democracy's election, rife with allegations of rigging and backroom deals. But there are countless unique moments across this country -- the 180,000 tunics bought for polling staff workers; the 58,000 bottles of indelible ink, first made famous in recent Iraqi elections; the donkeys carrying ballot boxes on their backs to polling centers too difficult to reach any other way.

What perhaps unites this diverse and historically bickering electorate is a widespread disappointment with the government of Karzai, who has led Afghanistan since the United States routed the Taliban in late 2001. For the first time since the war began, according to an ABC/BBC/ARD poll, the majority of Afghans believe their country is headed in the wrong direction.

The Kutchi tribesmen visited by the U.N. worker seemed particularly skeptical of their futures, despite their enthusiasm to vote.

"We are just like donkeys -- we don't know anything about the candidates and their policies. If you promise to help us, then we'll vote for you," Padshah Khan said. "Life is terrible. Our situation has gotten worse since the fall of the Taliban government. No ones cares about us, not any government."

Despite the negativity, Karzai is still widely expected to be the leader in the polls. Both he and Abdullah, who is running a strong second behind the incumbent, have been promising to improve security and reduce poverty throughout the country.

But recently the momentum has shifted away from Karzai and toward Abdullah.

Today was the final day they and the more than 3,000 candidates vying for parliamentary seats were allowed to campaign.

Abdullah spent the day in Kabul, holding a massive rally in a stadium that once hosted Taliban executions. Some 10,000 supporters wore blue baseball hats and waved blue flags, repeatedly chanting Abdullah's name, according to news agencies that attended the rally.

At one point helicopters circling overhead dropped thousands of leaflets onto the crowd featuring Abdullah's face and the marker that will appear next to his headshot on the official ballot.

The helicopter pilots were later arrested for violating Kabul's airspace.

"Do you want to vote for the president who releases killers from jail, who releases opium traders from jail?" Abdullah shouted, lashing out at Karzai.

In an interview in Talatkhan, Abdullah criticized Karzai for governing poorly, saying he had created a growing gap between the population and the government.

"There is growing dissatisfaction and disenchantment of the people," Abdullah said. "All these things help and strengthen the insurgency."

Karzai cancelled planned appearances in Helmand in southern Afghanistan and Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan due to security fears, according to his campaign.

On Sunday his government announced the return of Uzbek warlord Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, a notorious, divisive figure known for holding public executions during the civil war that followed the Soviet withdraw from Afghanistan.

Critics have accused Karzai of trying to guarantee victory by cementing deals with leaders believed capable of guaranteeing ethnic blocs, and Dostum is believed to be able to deliver additional Uzbek voters.

The U.S. embassy immediately criticized the move, saying it had "serious concerns" about Dostum's presence because of his "culpability for massive human rights violations."

The campaign of Dr. Ashraf Ghani, the former finance minster, similarly objected to Dostum's return, calling Dostum "warlord, human rights violator and killer" in a statement released today.

"He has the lion's share in every disastrous and criminal action in Afghanistan, either before Taliban or after," Ghani said.

Ghani was the only major candidate to campaign outside of Kabul today, drawing 10,000 supporters in three events in eastern Afghanistan, according to his campaign.

He has strongly criticized Karzai for making backroom deals to try and eclipse 50 percent, therefore avoiding a runoff. Dostum, his campaign argued, was simply the latest example.

"He's based this election on these kinds of deals, and they're not palatable to many Afghans," a Ghani campaign official said.