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KABUL: A spate of deadly attacks has cast fresh doubts over Afghanistan's ambitious plan to hold its first ever free elections in June, fuelling fears they will be hijacked by militants and strongmen.
Political analysts say President Hamid Karzai is under pressure from his backers in Washington to hold the vote as soon as possible, so it can be touted as a foreign policy victory by President George W. Bush as he seeks re-election in November.
But the consequences could be seriously damaging for Afghanistan, they warn. "It is far too soon," said Ahmed Rashid, an Afghan expert based in Pakistan. "I think they should be postponed for at least a year, perhaps until Spring 2005."
Karzai vowed on Saturday to contest the presidential election and reiterated that he aimed to hold it as planned in June. But in a situation with clear lessons for another post-war scenario in Iraq, violence in Afghanistan is already having a negative impact on preparations for the vote.
Only 275,000 out of Afghanistan's estimated 10 million voters have been registered because the United Nations considers much of the country too dangerous to work in.
UN officials have said June looks an impossible target unless security improves significantly. Rashid and others also believe more time must be allowed for key initiatives such as a two-year disarmament programme to advance and for foreign civilian-military teams to have an impact in the chronically unstable south and east of the country.
Disarming tens of thousands of fighters who form private militias across the war-shattered country will limit the ability of strongmen and faction leaders opposed to Karzai to influence or disrupt the election.
Without better security, a resurgent Taliban and militant allies such as Al Qaeda and renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar could have a field day terrorising voters.
The threat is not idle. The United Nations says there have been more attacks on civilians in the last three months than in the 20 months following the Bonn Agreement in December 2001 that set out the framework for post-Taliban Afghanistan.
Sixteen people, most of them children, were killed by a blast in the southern city of Kandahar on Tuesday. Hours later 12 members of the Hazara minority were shot dead.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that Afghanistan faced "a deterioration in security at precisely the point where the peace process demands the opposite".
HEAVY HAND: Afghanistan adopted a constitution this month, but the euphoria from the milestone in its recovery from a quarter of a century of war was tempered by attacks.
Delegates at the grand assembly that passed the charter spoke of the heavy hand of US foreign policy in a debate marred by bickering between rival ethnic groups, bullying, corruption and anger that some were prevented from having a say.
"The international community clearly needs markers of success for its investment in Afghanistan," said Paul O'Brien, advocacy officer at aid agency CARE.
"While that is a legitimate concern, it is critical that pressure to achieve those markers of success does not compromise the rights of ordinary Afghans."
The sense of alienation at the constitutional debate was not only felt by delegates. European policy makers appear to have a diminishing role in rebuilding Afghanistan, analysts warn.
"The last thing we need right now is more unilateralism by the United States in the war against terrorism in a region where there is already a framework for multilateralism," Rashid said.
The constitution states that "every effort shall be made" to hold presidential and legislative elections simultaneously. To do so within the next few months could strengthen Karzai's opponents from the mainly ethnic Tajik Northern Alliance, who have argued for parliamentary checks on the president's powers and alone can boast some kind of political organization, particularly across the ethnic-minority dominated north.
If, as many expect, the election is only for the president, the opposite may be true - that a strong president with no parliament will further disenfranchize ethnic minorities and create autocratic rule.-Reuters
