By IPS Correspondents
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Oct 25 2004 (IPS)

The easy part for Afghanistan’s incumbent President Hamid Karzai will be winning a large majority in the country’s landmark presidential polls. The tough test, however, will be the task ahead of him – one that could either make or break the presidency.

The easy part for Afghanistan’s incumbent President Hamid Karzai will be winning a large majority in the country’s landmark presidential polls. The tough test, however, will be the task ahead of him – one that could either make or break the presidency.

With more than 94 percent of votes counted, Karzai, 46, has 55.3 percent of the vote, the Afghan-United Nations Joint Electoral Management Body said on Sunday.

Karzai faced 17 candidates in the election, which took place almost three years after the Taliban were ousted in the U.S.-led war against terrorism. An estimated 75 percent of the more than 10 million Afghans eligible to vote took part.

About 850,000 refugees living in neighbouring Pakistan and Iran also voted – the largest out-of-country election ever.

Karzai’s main challenger, Yunus Qanooni, won 16.2 percent of the vote and has already conceded defeat.

Haji Mohammmad Mohaqiq, a former planning minister, won 11.8 percent of the vote, according to the joint election body. Abdul Rashid Dostum, a former warlord, has 10.3 percent.

The fifth-placed candidate has won 1.2 percent of the vote. Massooda Jalal, the only woman to stand in the election, is sixth with 1.1 percent of the vote.

A powerful Pashtun leader from the Taliban’s former stronghold of Kandahar, Karzai has led the country’s interim government since December 2001.

In June 2002, he was endorsed as head of state by Afghanistan’s loya jirga or grand council.

Karzai swept onto the international stage in January 2002 at an international donor’s conference in Tokyo, where he managed to persuade donors to pledge more than four billion U.S. dollars to help rebuild Afghanistan.

”No doubt, the challenges before Karzai are mammoth, but not insurmountable. Much depends on U.S. support for the nascent democracy in Afghanistan,” said an aide of the incumbent president, who is currently on a private visit to Peshawar.

Born in the key southern city of Kandahar in December 1957, Karzai grew up in the capital, Kabul.

He lived in exile in Pakistan during the 1980s Soviet occupation and the Taliban’s 1996 -2001 regime.

During both periods he criss-crossed the border to fight alongside the mujahedin against the Soviets and to stir rebellion against the hard-line Islamic fundamentalists.

When U.S.-led forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to oust the Taliban and al-Qaeda after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Karzai – who was with the Northern Alliance – led a frantic and daring mission into the badlands of southern Afghanistan to muster tribes against them.

The greatest challenge Karzai now faces is uniting Afghanistan’s disparate tribes and ethnic groups in order to have a functioning Afghan state.

But there are indications that Karzai may invite some of his defeated opponents to join his new government.

Panghar Noorani, editor of the ‘Rozgaran’ weekly and a political analyst, said Karzai should select people based on their qualifications and not as representatives of groups.

”But some candidates like Qanooni, Mohaqiq and Dostum, do not want to join Karzai as individuals,” said Noorani.

Sayed Hossain Alami Balkhi, a vice-presidential candidate who ran with Qanooni agreed that his camp probably would take part in the next government.

”If the election result becomes clear and transparent, we will be helping the government whether the president invites us or not,” said Balkhi. But if cases of alleged fraud are not dealt with properly, then candidates may reconsider their position, he said.

Among the complaints being investigated by the United Nations are the apparent failure of indelible ink that was supposed to stain voters’ fingers to prevent multiple votes, as well as ballot-stuffing and irregular opening hours for polling booths.

Mubariz, a spokesman for Mohaqiq, said his candidate was of the same mind.

”We will cooperate with the president if those things that placed the elections in jeopardy are addressed,” he said.

Political analyst Mohammad Musa Marofi said candidates should be free to support or oppose the next president, but they should not hinder him in working for the good of the nation.

An important problem the new Karzai government would have to address immediately is Afghanistan’s opium production.

In a nation where the average wage is two U.S. dollars a day, heroin and opium trafficking produced revenues last year estimated at 2.3 billion U.S. dollars annually – as much as 60 percent of Afghanistan’s official annual GDP. Opium has become the perfect export from a land enveloped by chaos and war.

”Following the Taliban’s ouster, the new government outlawed opium production. But chaos meant that the poppy fields were replanted and smuggling revived,” said Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the U.S.-based Cato Institute.

”Regime change, though necessary for security purposes, did not provide Afghan households with a new income,” added Bandow in an article published by ‘The San Diego Union-Tribune’.

The United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has warned that even the return of stability and prosperity in Afghanistan won’t eliminate the drug trade.

”Given the current opium prices within Afghanistan, it is also clear that no other crop can compete with opium poppy as a source of income,” observed UNODC in a recent report.

Another gargantuan task Karzai faces is finding ways to lure back over three million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and a further one million in Iran.

”We would go back when the situation becomes absolutely normal. We cannot risk our lives,” Haji Gul, an Afghan jewellery trade in Sarafa Bazaar – near the Afghanistan border – told IPS.

”My uncle and aunt died in a rocket attack two years ago. I don’t want more of my family members to die,” added Gul.

(*Pajhwok Afghan News contributed to this report)

Excerpt:

By IPS Correspondents
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Oct 25 2004 (IPS)

The easy part for Afghanistan’s incumbent President Hamid Karzai will be winning a large majority in the country’s landmark presidential polls. The tough test, however, will be the task ahead of him – one that could either make or break the presidency.

With more than 94 percent of votes counted, Karzai, 46, has 55.3 percent of the vote, the Afghan-United Nations Joint Electoral Management Body said on Sunday.

Karzai faced 17 candidates in the election, which took place almost three years after the Taliban were ousted in the U.S.-led war against terrorism. An estimated 75 percent of the more than 10 million Afghans eligible to vote took part.

About 850,000 refugees living in neighbouring Pakistan and Iran also voted – the largest out-of-country election ever.

Karzai’s main challenger, Yunus Qanooni, won 16.2 percent of the vote and has already conceded defeat.

”In order to respect the nation’s will, based on the numbers announced up to now, we consider Karzai the winner,” Qanooni’s spokesman Sayed Hamid Noori told reporters in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul.

The fifth-placed candidate has won 1.2 percent of the vote. Massooda Jalal, the only woman to stand in the election, is sixth with 1.1 percent of the vote.

A powerful Pashtun leader from the Taliban’s former stronghold of Kandahar, Karzai has led the country’s interim government since December 2001.

In June 2002, he was endorsed as head of state by Afghanistan’s loya jirga or grand council.

Karzai swept onto the international stage in January 2002 at an international donor’s conference in Tokyo, where he managed to persuade donors to pledge more than four billion U.S. dollars to help rebuild Afghanistan.

”No doubt, the challenges before Karzai are mammoth, but not insurmountable. Much depends on U.S. support for the nascent democracy in Afghanistan,” said an aide of the incumbent president, who is currently on a private visit to Peshawar.

Born in the key southern city of Kandahar in December 1957, Karzai grew up in the capital, Kabul.

He lived in exile in Pakistan during the 1980s Soviet occupation and the Taliban’s 1996 -2001 regime.

During both periods he criss-crossed the border to fight alongside the mujahedin against the Soviets and to stir rebellion against the hard-line Islamic fundamentalists.

When U.S.-led forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to oust the Taliban and al-Qaeda after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Karzai – who was with the Northern Alliance – led a frantic and daring mission into the badlands of southern Afghanistan to muster tribes against them.

The greatest challenge Karzai now faces is uniting Afghanistan’s disparate tribes and ethnic groups in order to have a functioning Afghan state.

But there are indications that Karzai may invite some of his defeated opponents to join his new government.

Panghar Noorani, editor of the ‘Rozgaran’ weekly and a political analyst, said Karzai should select people based on their qualifications and not as representatives of groups.

”But some candidates like Qanooni, Mohaqiq and Dostum, do not want to join Karzai as individuals,” said Noorani.

Sayed Hossain Alami Balkhi, a vice-presidential candidate who ran with Qanooni agreed that his camp probably would take part in the next government.

”If the election result becomes clear and transparent, we will be helping the government whether the president invites us or not,” said Balkhi. But if cases of alleged fraud are not dealt with properly, then candidates may reconsider their position, he said.

Among the complaints being investigated by the United Nations are the apparent failure of indelible ink that was supposed to stain voters’ fingers to prevent multiple votes, as well as ballot-stuffing and irregular opening hours for polling booths.

Mubariz, a spokesman for Mohaqiq, said his candidate was of the same mind.

”We will cooperate with the president if those things that placed the elections in jeopardy are addressed,” he said.

Political analyst Mohammad Musa Marofi said candidates should be free to support or oppose the next president, but they should not hinder him in working for the good of the nation.

An important problem the new Karzai government would have to address immediately is Afghanistan’s opium production.

In a nation where the average wage is two U.S. dollars a day, heroin and opium trafficking produced revenues last year estimated at 2.3 billion U.S. dollars annually – as much as 60 percent of Afghanistan’s official annual GDP. Opium has become the perfect export from a land enveloped by chaos and war.

”Following the Taliban’s ouster, the new government outlawed opium production. But chaos meant that the poppy fields were replanted and smuggling revived,” said Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the U.S.-based Cato Institute.

”Regime change, though necessary for security purposes, did not provide Afghan households with a new income,” added Bandow in an article published by ‘The San Diego Union-Tribune’.

The United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has warned that even the return of stability and prosperity in Afghanistan won’t eliminate the drug trade.

”Given the current opium prices within Afghanistan, it is also clear that no other crop can compete with opium poppy as a source of income,” observed UNODC in a recent report.

Another gargantuan task Karzai faces is finding ways to lure back over three million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and a further one million in Iran.

”We would go back when the situation becomes absolutely normal. We cannot risk our lives,” Haji Gul, an Afghan jewellery trade in Sarafa Bazaar – near the Afghanistan border – told IPS.

”My uncle and aunt died in a rocket attack two years ago. I don’t want more of my family members to die,” added Gul.

(*Pajhwok Afghan News contributed to this report)

Excerpt: