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.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
RSS