Afghanistan: Power Plays

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has had a busy week. He fired a powerful warlord from his post as provincial governor, deployed military forces to deal with the subsequent unrest, released hundreds of former Taliban prisoners and a former high-ranking Taliban official and survived a Sept 16 assassination attempt.

Afghanistan’s Oct 9 first presidential election is less than a month away, and the myriad power players are busy campaigning for votes and -- more importantly -- jockeying for position in post-election Afghanistan. Karzai has made his position well known with his recent announcement that he would not seek to form a coalition government, and with the decision to remove warlord Ismail Khan -- whose ethnic heritage links him to the country’s opposition Tajik minority -- from his position as governor of Herat.

For Karzai, it is a matter of exploiting his connections to the majority Pashtun community in an effort to expand his control throughout Afghanistan. For the various non-Pashtun warlords and gunlords ubiquitous in Afghan society, it is a matter of forming alliances and retaining control of their swathes of territory. For remnants of the Taliban, it is a different matter entirely -- restoring their control over Afghanistan piece by piece. All are leveraging their assets against each other in anticipation of the election.

The United States chose Karzai as interim president for two obvious reasons: He is an ethnic Pashtun and a supporter of U.S. policies. This is why Washington supports his position in the present and future government of Afghanistan. As president, however, Karzai is little more than the mayor of Kabul -- with U.S. forces backing him.

Karzai is not a stupid man, and realizes he cannot win a battle against the warlords; so he is attempting to be opportunistic and exert his influence to intimidate his opposition before the election. His largely unsuccessful plan to expand and consolidate his control outside the capital entailed cutting deals with regional warlords and power brokers in order to rule the outlying areas by proxy, then eventually trying to replace the regional leaders with his own men. This was attempted in a number of provinces, but was met with such opposition that it failed. The most recent attempt was in Herat with the ouster of Khan.

Khan’s removal was preceded by a military setback during fights with rival militias, which made Khan seem vulnerable, as far as Kabul’s inner circles could tell. Unfortunately for Karzai, he seems to have underestimated Khan’s overall strength among Herat’s population.

Just hours after Khan’s removal, his supporters took to the streets, rioted against U.N. and Afghan government offices and had to be dispersed by the Afghan military (backed by U.S. forces). In Khan’s place was a Karzai-appointed politician who is ruling only by the largesse of the U.S. military and whose rule does not appear to extend beyond his government housing and offices.

In Herat and elsewhere the opposition is employing tactics similar to Karzai’s: using intimidation and threats in order to improve its position after the election or, more likely, to ensure that the status quo remains intact.
Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras -- who make up most of the minority opposition -- have been opposing Karzai’s expansion efforts in their individual provinces (as in the cases of Khan and Uzbek leader Rashid Dostum) and have sought to temper his influence by putting up a united front to Pashtun rule. The opposition has, according to sources, united behind ethnic Tajik Yunus Qanuni. Abdul Sattar Sirat -- a former royalist -- is another opposition candidate who enjoys a degree of support from some warlords.
If truly free and fair elections were held in October, the possibility of a united opposition candidate emerging victorious is fairly strong. Security in the minority areas of the country is far better than that in the Pashtun regions -- meaning that polling places in the minority areas will be able to operate unmolested. Additionally, despite Karzai’s best efforts to cozy up to "moderate" Taliban members, he remains a perceived threat -- which explains the assassination attempt taking place in a Pashtun area and a Taliban spokesman’s announcement that every presidential candidate, including Karzai, is a possible target for the Taliban. Then there is the Herat incident, which, taken at face value, highlights the Afghan government’s virtual inability to control the outlying province. The lessons from this certainly were not lost on Karzai -- or his opposition, which is watching the events in Herat closely.

The opposition -- despite everything seemingly in its favor -- realizes the United States is not likely to support anyone other than Karzai for president. As such, all the opposition’s manoeuvres smack of intimidation and the need to ensure Karzai knows his place once elections are over. If Karzai is still president of Afghanistan come Oct 10, opposition figures likely will quiet their chest thumping and settle comfortably into the status quo. In the back of their minds, however, will be the knowledge that Karzai is militarily weak, and should he go too far in his efforts to exert his authority, he can be easily smacked back down -- which could result in an ugly shooting match that would force the United States to choose sides.

The wild card is the assortment of Islamist militants, including the Taliban. By declaring all candidates targets for attack, the Taliban has thrown its hat in the ring on the side of mayhem. Even al-Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri has threatened to renew violence in Afghanistan ahead of elections. Karzai had made efforts to appeal to the largely Pashtun Taliban to support his candidacy by ensuring security in their areas. Evidently, these efforts have not borne fruit. It is also worth considering that it is in the Taliban’s best interests to oust Karzai and have him replaced with a Pashtun leader more amenable to their cause.

However, Karzai is expected to maintain his grip on the presidency -- just as the elections are expected to be anything but free, fair and nationwide. Through voting irregularities, delays prompted by security concerns or simply boycotts, Oct 9 will end in Karzai’s favor. After that, Karzai is likely to settle back into the normal state of affairs for Afghanistan, a virtual hodgepodge of feudal kingdoms. After the dust settles the warlords will continue to run the show in their respective regions, Karzai will remain the public face of Afghan "democracy" and the Taliban will try to undermine the whole thing -- in short, business as usual.