Less than a year after winning Afghanistan’s first presidential vote, Hamid Karzai will have to curb the power of warlords and opium kingpins who are likely to be elected to the nation’s new Parliament.
The charismatic Karzai has stamped his authority outside the capital in the past 11 months by taming some of the most powerful former mujahedin commanders, giving them central government positions to weaken their regional power bases.
”The authority of the central government and of Karzai, which was reduced to Kabul at the beginning, has extended virtually everywhere, even if his commands are not always followed,” said Francesc Vendrell, special representative of the European Union in Afghanistan.
But the dapper United States-backed leader will soon have to deal with 249 squabbling members of the lower house of Parliament, who will be chosen in historic polls on Sunday.
They are likely to present Karzai (47) with some daunting hurdles.
Most Afghan provinces and districts still remain under the thumb of commanders with private armies, left over from the war to oust the Soviet army and then the Taliban regime.
And many warlords are deeply involved in the drug trade, which accounts for almost half the country’s economy and for around 90% of the world’s opium supply.
”While there has been a measure of progress in limiting the influence of the military factor at national level, the deeper you go in terms of the provincial and the district level, the more militarised political life tends to be,” said Jean Arnault, the UN’s special envoy to Afghanistan.
While 45 people have been struck off the electoral roll, mostly for links with illegal militias, many feared local commanders are still standing for election.
In a speech to tribal leaders and Islamic clerics in the western city of Herat on Tuesday, Karzai urged Afghans ”not to vote for those who have done no good for the country”.
At the same time, he rebuffed criticism from rights groups for including warlords in the democratic process.
”Sometimes I hear criticism that all sorts of people have become candidates — former communists, former Taliban, former mujahedin and others — but I am happy that today we have an Afghanistan in which people feel safe and secure and they stand as candidates,” he said.
Nevertheless, many candidates linked with the Northern Alliance, the US allies who helped oust the hardline Taliban regime in 2001, are standing for election and they will have a veto on Karzai’s 27-member Cabinet.
Those in the most powerful positions also hail, like Karzai, from the country’s ethnic Pashtun majority.
If other disgruntled groups such as the Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks form a united front they could make life very difficult for the president, analysts say.
”It remains to be seen whether you will get any defined voting blocs other than splits along ethnic lines, but it could make it harder for Karzai to push through legislation on drugs if you have many drug barons elected,” said a western expert working with candidates.
In the provinces, where more than 80 percent of the population are illiterate and many people still earn a living growing opium, making an informed choice will be difficult.
”I honestly can’t see it changing,” said a diplomat on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his views. ”Corruption and drugs reach to the highest levels of government.
”It took Thailand decades to wipe out opium. For Afghanistan it will be longer.”
Karzai may also find it harder to reshuffle provincial governors around the country to stem corruption.
”You can dismiss people at will when you’ve appointed them, but it is a lot harder to do that when they have been elected by a popular mandate,” said a western security expert. – Sapa-AFP