Insurgency backdrop to Afghanistan's presidential elections
Updated
Afghanistan goes to the polls later this week for its second presidential election, and that at a time when the reach of the Taliban extends across half the country and a campaign of intimidation and violence is well underway. On Tuesday, the Taliban claimed responsibility for a set of rockets that were fired in the capital Kabul - one into the compound of the presidential palace and one at the police headquarters. And the insurgency now makes up the bulk of the backdrop to the vote.
Presenter: Linda Mottram, Canberra correspondent
Speakers: Raspal Khosa, South Asia specialist, Australian Strategic Policy Institute; Professor Amin Saikal, director, Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, Australian National University; Amanullah Jayhoon, ambassador to Australia for Afghanistan
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MOTTRAM: The election is not just a contest for Afghanistan's powerful Presidency. It's also part of the contest between the Taliban and the Coalition. Because since 2005/6, the Taliban has so extended its reach in the country, that top U-S brass have admitted the insurgents have got the upper hand. Raspal Khosa is a South Asia specialist with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
KHOSA: The insurgency itself reaches basically half of the country now, south of a line extending from the upper part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan to Herat in the West.
MOTTRAM: Election-associated attacks have increased as predicted and are expected to spike for the August 20 election. Raspal Khosa says coalition forces have been mounting operations to try to arrest the Taliban momentum ahead of the poll.
KHOSA: We saw that in the lower Helmand River Valley with twin operations, Operation Kanjar by the U-S Marines, and Operation Panchai Palang by the British-led brigade that operates out of Lashkar Gar, the provincial capital. We're now seeing coalition forces move in to try and create security in the leadup to the elections in Nalzad with in Helmand.
MOTTRAM: Protecting the electorate is difficult indeed. 76 per cent of the population lives in remote and electorally critical areas, where vote-buying by candidates is aimed at winning over local power holders who can deliver up large blocks of support. So the Taliban has stepped up violence and threats .. including a warning they'll cut off the fingers of those found with the indelible ink constituents are marked with when they vote.
In terms of the electorate's mood, Professor Amin Saikal from the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University in Canberra says people want change.
SAIKAL: There are a large proportion of the Afghan voters have become very disillusioned with the Karzai government and the Karzai leadership and as a result large crowds have been turning up in rallies of some of Karzai's opponents particularly the former foreign minister Doctor Abdullah and the former finance minister Ashraf Ghani.
MOTTRAM: Abdullah Abdullah has been closing the gap on Hamid Karzai .. and Ashraf Ghani -- a Columbia University technocrat -- has reportedly been courted by the U-S to fill a new post of chief executive it wants to establish under whoever is newly elected as the President. Its a bid at decentralising the enormous power and personal stature of the President which has hobbled Afghan political development. Its a system that's also been good for corruption says Amin Saikal.
SAIKAL: Karzai himself is a fairly clean individual and I think with a lot of good intentions for the country. But he is surrounded by a group of what I'll call "ethnic entrepreneurs" that know they have vested interests in a very corrupt and dysfunctional system that they've created in order to maintain that system and they will do whatever really possible in order to enable Karzai to win the election so that they will not lose their own interests and they will remain in their own positions and run from one another.
MOTTRAM: Corruption then will be on Afghan minds. But the influence of family, clan and tribal leaders will probably be more influential .. that is, for those who choose not to be intimidated. Afghanistan's Ambassador to Australia is Amanullah Jayhoon.
JAYHOON: There is a worry that if the people cannot take part the legitimacy of the election or the acceptability of the election is a concern. But up to date what we hear from our forces, from our security forces and also the guarantees from the international community that they will be able to conduct the elections safe and sound, but the worry is there no doubt.
MOTTRAM: As for the outcome, 50 per cent of the vote is required for outright victory. Hamid Karzai was tracking at 45 per cent on a recent American poll. That would mean a second round run-off. And President Karzai could lose. Amin Saikal says both outcomes could be good for Afghan democracy and political pluralism.
SAIKAL: It'd be good in terms of impressing upon the Afghan people that once a person takes over power that does not mean that he would remain there forever. And I think if by any chance president Karzai loses he does have a lot of experience and he does have a lot of national and international connections and he could make use of those in order to form a very credible opposition and act as the leader of that opposition.
MOTTRAM: First though, comes the dangerous path to the ballot box.
