Two months before Afghanistan holds its first election for president, preparations have an air of democratic bustle.
Nearly 9 million eligible Afghans have registered to vote so far, several million more than expected, despite efforts by the Taliban to disrupt the process. NATO has agreed to provide extra forces to help the 18,000 US troops who are maintaining security.
The incumbent, President Hamid Karzai, and 22 opponents have registered for the race and are starting to hold rounds of news conferences and rallies.
Despite the trappings of a democratic election, the real decision about who will be elected president in October, and elected to Parliament next spring, will probably be made at meetings taking place right now in guest houses around town, where heavily armed guards idle outside near SUVs with tinted glass.
Inside, men who command thousands in their own private armies, some of them veterans from the wars against the Soviet Union and the Taliban, are deep in discussion.
Will they back Karzai, who has vowed, with US and international backing, to disarm them and build a unified national defense corps? Or will they form new alliances in opposition?
Whichever way they choose, their soldiers, or mujahedeen, and their local communities are likely to follow their instructions at the polls.
That means that Karzai may not be the shoo-in he was thought to be, unless he works out a deal with the regional commanders and governors who have become his single biggest challenge as he tries to maintain power and build democratic institutions. Their anger at him is rising.
"Karzai was the strongest candidate," said Massouda Jalal, the only woman running for president, who came in second to Karzai in the vote for leader of the transitional administration in 2002 at the loya jirga, or national assembly. "Now he is one of the strong candidates."
Jalal and others say that Karzai, whom opinion polls show to be overwhelmingly popular, may fail to win a majority of the votes and thus be forced into a runoff election. To gain the mandate to establish a strong central government, Karzai wants not only to win, but to win big.
Karzai went so far as to drop the most powerful leader of mujahedeen from his ticket, an action that has won him praise in some quarters but anger in others.
That was the powerful defense minister and vice president, Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim, who has since led the defection from Karzai.
"Karzai from now on will not have the support of the big group in the Cabinet and the government that he has had in the past," said Fahim, an ethnic Tajik who is expected to take with him the support of most of the mujahedeen in the north.
Abdul Shakur Waqef Hakimi, a spokesman for Jamiat-e-Islami, one of the largest mujahedeen parties, said, "From the beginning the mujahedeen genuinely supported the government, but then Karzai made mistakes and he lost the support of the mujahedeen."
The mujahedeen are now rallying around Muhammad Yunus Qanooni.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
RSS