Karzai Hopes to Become Leader in His Own Right

KABUL, Afghanistan —  Hamid Karzai became Afghanistan’s president thanks to American patronage and his skills as a unifier.

It helped that he left exile in Pakistan three years ago for southern Afghanistan with a guerrilla force that fought alongside U.S. troops. Soon after the Taliban regime was ousted in December 2001, Washington pushed to install Karzai as interim prime minister. Six months later, the U.S. pressed for his subsequent selection as interim president.

In Saturday’s presidential election, Karzai hopes to secure more legitimacy by winning a popular mandate, which might give him the power to rein in warlords, halt widespread opium cultivation and set the country more firmly on a path to democracy and development.

But to win votes, Karzai has had to rely on bargaining and other time-honored Afghan tribal customs. For weeks, the president and members of his family have been receiving delegations of tribal leaders, dressed in turbans, long robes and flowing beards, who show up on designated days at the presidential palace near the center of Kabul.

Like Karzai, many are Pushtuns, Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group. Arriving dozens at a time, they walk into the compound in the capital for meetings at which they pledge their followers’ votes to Karzai, with an unspoken understanding that the loyalty will be recorded and remembered by the president, said a diplomat familiar with the process.

When they return home, their followers are directed to fill out ballots to support the president as a matter of honor and tribal loyalty. Most are expected to comply, even though the balloting is supposed to be private and in secret.

More than 10 million people, including 4 million women previously barred from public life, have registered for the historic election that is scheduled to take place under joint U.N. and Afghan sponsorship. There have been no credible preelection polls, but most observers believe that Karzai will win handily.

Today, the country enters a quiet period of no campaigning, with U.S., multinational forces and the new Afghan army and police on high alert for attacks by militants who want to disrupt the polling.

At least some of the 18 presidential candidates were considering entering into last-minute deals to throw support either to Karzai or his chief rival, former Education Minister Younis Qanooni, in exchange for future government posts.

Karzai held two election rallies, both in the last two days of the 30-day campaign. A rally planned last month for the southeastern city of Gardez was aborted after a rocket was fired at his helicopter. For part of the campaign period, Karzai left the country, traveling to Germany to accept a human rights award.

Bodyguards have kept a thick security wall between Karzai and voters because he is a prime target for assassination by Taliban and Al Qaeda sympathizers, active mainly in the south and east of Afghanistan. He has survived two attempts on his life in the last two years.

Partly because of the tight security, Karzai’s final rally at a Kabul stadium on Wednesday seemed staged and listless. Only a few thousand supporters attended, apparently because officials were wary that a larger gathering posed more security risks.

“Please move to the front of the stand so we can see you,” an announcer encouraged the sparse crowd.

Karzai’s supporters were thoroughly searched before they were allowed onto the soccer field, where the Taliban once carried out public executions.

A drummer played a tribal beat while young men took turns dancing in the hour or so before the president emerged on a reviewing stand high above the field. He was wearing his signature dress -- a karakul lamb’s wool hat and a blue and aquamarine shawl.

“Long live Karzai! May he be president forever!” shouted a few voices. An imam read a prayer from the Koran and a woman recited her poems before Karzai addressed the crowd in Pashto and Dari, saying the upcoming vote was “a source of pride for Afghanistan and its independence.”

“If I receive the free votes of ordinary people, it will be a mandate for me to build a stable and peaceful Afghanistan,” he said. “After 18 years of blood and destruction, we will show that we are a noble nation.”

Karzai also promised to respect the people’s decision and step down if defeated, but that if elected he would rebuild the country so that it could stand on its own feet and eventually bid farewell to U.S. and other foreign troops .

Bodyguards with rifles flanked Karzai, watching the audience warily. Other gunmen were stationed on the roofs above him and in front of the crowd below.

Such precautions have become necessary. On Wednesday, a convoy carrying one of Karzai’s two running mates, Ahmed Zia Masoud, was hit by a rocket or roadside bomb near Feyzabad, the capital of Badakhshan province in the northeast.

Masoud, a Tajik and a brother of slain Northern Alliance militia leader Ahmed Shah Masoud -- a legendary anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban figure -- escaped unhurt. But the explosion killed one person and injured three others, according to news agencies.

Security concerns are not the only reason for Karzai’s lack of vigorous campaigning, said Information and Culture Minister Sayed Makhdoom Raheen.

“By now, President Karzai has gone to about all the provinces in the last three years and it is not necessary to make new trips for the sake of the election,” Raheen said. “People are already familiar with his thoughts and ideas.... He is not a new and unknown face to the people.”

The president also wanted to shun theatrics, such as kissing babies, he said. “I don’t believe in all that kind of baloney, do you?”

“There is already a lot of cynicism that it is a done deal,” said Andrew Wilder, director of the nongovernmental Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, which is studying the country’s democratization attempts.

Analysts say the real question is whether Karzai’s 17 opponents collectively will draw enough votes to deny Karzai a majority and force a runoff in November.

His strongest challenger, Qanooni, is a former Tajik guerrilla from the Panjshir Valley, a region where opposition to the Taliban was fervent. Qanooni’s campaign has appealed to fellow Tajiks and to the mujahedin veterans who fought the Soviets and the Taliban.

Karzai, educated abroad, was more an intellectual and political activist than a warrior.

He has been active in trying to get the other candidates to join him in a coalition. Other aspirants may do well in specific areas; they include Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, who holds sway in the city of Sheberghan in north-central Afghanistan.

Dostum has warned Uzbeks that only he can uphold their interests, and police in the area under his control have reportedly taken down Karzai signs and intimidated residents, demanding that they support their governor.

Nevertheless, Karzai has the highest name recognition and most familiar face across the largely illiterate country. Although criticized for being too cozy with the West, he is credited with delivering three years of peace. Others argue that he can best guarantee aid and loans from the international community.

To the war-weary Afghan, Karzai is seen as not being connected to the corruption and human rights abuses of the “commanders” -- the country’s warlords, who are still powerful outside Kabul.

“There is no question that I support him,” said Abdulla Almous, a gray-bearded agricultural official from the capital attending the rally. “It is clear [that] since Karzai came to Kabul, there is security and stability. He is a good Muslim, and he makes no distinction among the ethnic groups.”