Afghan Elections

Today is the day when Afghans vote for President and Provincial Council members. Most Afghans seem to think that the election – certainly for President – is already concluded, partly by the strongmen in Washington and Brussels, partly through the backroom deals that the current President, Hamid Karzai, has entered into. The Norwegian anthropologist Fredrik Barth recently published a book, Afghanistan and the Taliban, where his basic recommendation is for the internationals to stop interfering, and rather support Karzai in playing politics the Afghan way, balancing various groups against each other, playing with the inherent instability of the system.

Karzai has probably not read Barth’s work (certainly not this book, which exists only in Norwegian), but he has certainly honored his advice. By early 2009, Karzai’s days as president were numbered. The new administration in DC had little confidence in him and looked eagerly for a replacement. But Karzai was smarter. He started exactly what he is good at; splitting the opposition by entering into deals with various individuals, by extension depriving the US of any opportunity of identifying a viable alternative candidate. Old warlords who were pushed out of government positions years back are now back on the scene, including the first vice president , Marshall Fahim, who was forced to resign as defense minister in 2004. The saying goes in Kabul now that if Karzai is to honor all his commitments, his next government will have at least two hundred ministers (while many of those currently doing a decent job will have left). It may be one kind of Afghan politics, but whether it is for the good of the Afghans, I am not so sure.
(Photo that I took in Kabul in the run-up to the 2004 elections)