Afghan polls: Ramazan & other factors

October 9, 2004 would appear to be the least suitable date set for Afghanistan's presidential polls. Other negative factors apart, the holy month of Ramazan, due to begin around October 15, alone could upset the smooth implementation of the electoral schedule.

Patterned on the French model, the Afghan elections may well run into two rounds in case no candidate wins the first round with an absolute 50 percent majority of the total vote cast.

Should that happen a second round would be held two weeks later. That would be the middle of Ramazan, a point in time when the faithful are even more disinclined to worry about mundane matters such as elections.

Deferment of the run-off polls beyond two weeks would call for a constitutional amendment with its attendant complications. In fact such a contingency ever arising may not only vitiate but practically unravel the whole electoral exercise.

A whole lot of other factors need also to be considered - ranging from serious rifts in President Hamid Karzai's own ministerial camp to raging war lordism across the country. The so-called Panjsheri Troika comprising Karzai's cabinet ministers Marshal Qasim Fahim, Younas Qanooni and Abdullah have all but revolted against him.

Younus Qanooni, his former interior and education minister, has emerged as Karzai's major rival in the presidential contest. Qanooni commands what is supposed the largest militia, about 5,000-strong based in Kabul. Together with Marshal Fahim, dropped by Karzai as his running mate, Qanooni will confront Karzai eyeball-to-eyeball in the capital.

General Rashid Dostum, by far the most powerful single Uzbek warlord, politically dominates the strategic north through his Jumbishi Milli and militarily through his 'army' originally known as the Giljam militia.

Dostum's militia, comprising Soviet arms, tanks and guns, has been rated as the best trained and battle-tested force outside the Afghan National Army, still in the making.

The Hazara region of Central Afghanistan is controlled by Mohammad Mohaqqiq and Ustad Mohammad Atta. Mohaqqiq is said to be in command of several rag-tag militias. He is also reported to enjoy the backing of 18 to 19 per cent of Afghan voters in the Hazara region. No ally or active collaborator of Dostum, he would side with him if only to hurt Karzai.

Herat, the strategic heart of Afghanistan's west en route to Turkmenistan, stays under the control of Commander Ismail, a Tajik, having real problems with rival Amanullah Khan, a Pukhtoon. The two were recently involved in a bloody feud followed by a truce. However, they stand as far apart as before.

Kandhar in the south, Karzai's birthplace, has emerged as major destabilizer for the Kabul regime. Even under the Taliban, the Kandhar Shura presided over by the legendary Mullah Umar hardly recognized the Kabul shura or the government.

During the five-year Taliban rule, Mullah Umar visited Kabul only twice. Even in the best-case electoral scenario, Kandhar is likely to act as a spoiler whether through an outright boycott or by escalating violence, sabotage and subversion.

Jalalabad, to the east, and southern Paktia, abutting the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier, stay as the two flashpoints inviting aggressive American air-land operations almost routinely.

After Kandhar in the deep south, Paktia-Khost-Paktika happen to be the strongholds of the Islamic radicals led by the absconding renegade Gulbadin Hekmatyar and the Taliban remnants. Karzai's efforts to win Hekmatyar over to his side notwithstanding, the latter stays in a hostile mode against the Kabul government.

American's own attitude towards the Pushtun Karzai and the Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance stays somewhat precariously balanced - even ambivalent. Former US Central Command Chief General Tommy Frank, in his recently published autobiography American Soldier, admits that the Northern Alliance was being 'revitalized' through its 'partnership' with US special forces, 'all across the combat zones in Panjshir and Amu Darya Valleys...'.

Even UN Secretary General Kofi Annan fears that unless the warlords and militias are disarmed, the whole electoral process may be jeopardized.

(The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army).