Madam President in Afghanistan?

Published May 15, 2009

Candidate for presidential election Frozan Fana prepares to address an audience during the opening of her campaign in Kabul. -AFP Photo
KABUL In a stuffy Kabul wedding hall about 400 men and a dozen enthusiastic women listen to Afghan presidential candidate Frozan Fana outline her manifesto as the first woman to run the violent, tribal nation, AFP reports.

Peace and security, national unity, media freedom, protecting the country's sovereignty — her electoral promises are likely little different from those of the 42 men who also want to lead Afghanistan.

What is unusual is that Fana is a woman running for the highest office in a deeply patriarchal nation where her sisterhood barely drive, almost never divorce, few read, girls are forced to marry and abuse is rife.

Her aim is to continue the work of her murdered cabinet minister husband.

'The best way to avenge a martyr is to carry on his vision,' says 40-year-old Fana, draped in a long, black cloak and headscarf.

'Everyone knows Doctor Abdul Rehman was a dove of peace,' she says of her late husband, the first post-Taliban aviation minister who was thrown out of a plane, stabbed and beaten to death in 2002.

The murder was painted as the product of spontaneous anger from pilgrims furious at being prevented from travelling to Mecca, but many believe political rivals were responsible.

Fana, also a doctor, acknowledges the risks in Afghanistan, especially for high-profile women. A woman provincial legislator and a woman police commander were killed in recent months in attacks blamed on the extremist Taliban.

Asked if Afghanistan is ready for a woman president, she retorts 'Why not? The constitution says any Afghan can be a candidate, be it a man or a woman.'

But she has a rival in the stakes to become Afghanistan's first woman head of state — lawmaker Shahla Ata, who believes now is the time to give women the chance to run the troubled country.

'The people have tested men, but they did not get anything. Now, why not see what a woman can do?' Ata says in her office, sitting in front of a campaign banner left over from the 2005 parliamentary election.

The poster shows the face of former president Mohammad Daud Khan, killed in his palace with his wife, several children and siblings in a April 1978 coup by pro-Soviet Afghan communists.

'I want to achieve the unaccomplished goals of Mohammad Daud Khan,' Ata says of a leader who promoted progressive ideals, including women's rights.

Ata, in her early 40s, says the government of President Hamid Karzai has failed to deal with Afghanistan's huge opium problem, weak administration and the plight of refugees and the youth.

To handle the raging Taliban insurgency, she would offer talks or devise 'policies to defeat them,' she says, perhaps naively. Karzai struggled to do this for years.

Ata is confident that she will give the incumbent and favourite a run for his money. 'I know I can do it, I am strong,' she says.

But most people agree there are only two challengers to Karzai his former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah and former finance minister Ashraf Ghani. Both veterans of Afghanistan's complex system.

The women — who have almost no profile in Afghanistan — are among the weakest of the 44 names on the candidate list which will likely be whittled down during a vetting process due to be completed early June.

The first woman to stand for president, respected doctor and cabinet minister Massooda Jalal, only took 1.1 per cent of the vote even though she had a strong campaign in the country's first presidential polls in 2004.

But lawmaker Shukria Barakzai says it is an achievement simply for women to join the race considering their status under the Taliban regime.

'Eight years ago women were not allowed to get a job or leave the house alone,' she told AFP. 'Eight years ago we were not just second-class citizens; we were ignored in the community. In a situation where we see women being attacked, violence against women, acid attacks, political discrimination — still women are doing something, they are campaigning, we can see their pictures,' she says.

Barakzai concedes it will take time for Afghans to accept a woman president. But she is so certain that day will come she is planning to stand in the next elections, due in 2014.

Fellow MP Safia Siddiqi is less positive about this year's crop.

'I don't think they believe they will win,' she told AFP. 'They just want to show their names nationally and internationally, and to the media.'

Although 25 per cent of seats in parliament are set aside for women, there is only one woman in the cabinet — the women affairs minister.

'If we have one woman minister, how should we dream of a woman president in this country?' Siddiqi asks.

Afghan men flatly reject that a woman could control this wild, impoverished country dominated by warlords and powerbrokers, riven by nepotism, corruption and competing tribal and ethnic interests.

'It may be good for the development of democracy to have women on the ballot paper,' says Kandahar businessman Mohammad Naseem.

'But they have no chance of winning.'

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