First of all, a warm welcome to 2010 with hopes for peace and stability! This year is crucial for Afghanistan in many ways: the insurgency has expanded its presence to nearly every corner of the country and the perpetrators have vowed to carry it on with much more force; the international community has promised a long term commitment and the United States is focusing to change the momentum of the insurgents with a troop surge and several other programs, such as the expansion of a secretive commando operation which will target ‘the most lethal insurgent groups;’ an effective reconciliation and reintegration process is recommended and voiced for from most of the influential stakeholders; and the new-in-process Afghan government is expected internationally to crackdown on the most despicable problem of the country: corruption.

The additional 30,000 American troops along with the 7000 NATO soldiers to arrive next year while President Hamid Karzai has introduced his not-so-new cabinet to the Wolesi Jirga (Parliament). On the opposite side, the insurgents killed an American soldier in the south of the country on Dec. 27 confirmed by a NATO-led ISAF press release on Dec. 28. This new death, according to AFP, doubled the US casualties in 2009.

‘The death takes this year’s international military casualties in Afghanistan to 506. Of those deaths, 310 have been Americans. That figure compares with a total of 155 Americans for 2008. The total number of foreign troops killed in Afghanistan in 2008 was 295’ (506 in 2009).

The most important point for 2010 is a hope of victory on both sides. It was not only President Obama’s Dec. 1 strategy that promised to turn the situation in favor of the international forces in next 18 months, but a NATO official even warned that a shadow Taliban government is in place if the international community failed this year. Quoted by Reuters, this senior NATO official said, ‘Time is running out. We’ve got about a year to prove that our strategy can actually work. The Taliban has shadow governors in 33 out of 34 provinces.’

He was also quoted to have said that the reason behind this was a weak government (we are witnesses of this): ‘Where the government is weak, the enemy is strong.’ ‘He also said international development ‘has not met the expectations of the people’ and that the ‘Taliban have an incredible ability to sustain themselves.’ This is an alarming situation for the Afghan government as well as the international community.

So growth in the insurgency, reconciliation with the reconcilable elements, combating corruption, and more effective efforts for capacity building on all levels are the main challenges that the Afghan government and the international community are facing together. And unfortunately, after 8 years lost, we have only one year (2010) now. By no means should we loss this chance.

For the last three or four days, I have been asked a question nearly a hundred times: ‘what are the election results?’ From my neighbors next door to the taxi drivers, colleagues and local and foreign journalists, everyone is impatient to know the outcome of the much-discussed, controversial Afghan elections that were held on August 20, but two months passed and no one has a clue about the real situation. One day it seems that a runoff will be the result but the next day there is a strong possibility that President Hamid Karzai is going to be declared as the winner. On the third day it appears there is a possibility for ‘negotiations’ and a ‘coalition government.’

Continue to read full story.

The U.N. and the U.S. wasted no time in declaring the election a success. True that the violence during the election process was not of much significance, in terms of its inability to hinder the process completely, but the fear that the Taliban were able to instill into the hearts of the voters before election day resulted in a low turnout across the country; even lower than expected in southern and southeastern provinces where the insurgents have control over several districts. They had threatened to cut off fingers found with the voting ink on.

According to latest reports, the vote count has been completed, the official results are yet not out, but both President Hamid Karzai and his rival Dr. Abdullah Abdullah claimed victory over one another last night. Other candidates blamed officials for rigging on a massive scale. Of course, irregularities, flaws in the process and other problems were reported from all over the country.

The country as well as the world is now impatiently waiting for the results to know who the winner was. Unofficial results and surveys show Mr. Karzai and Abdullah neck-and-neck in some provinces and Mr. Karzai much ahead in others. Two strong possibilities emerge as a result: a runoff if none of the candidates had the required votes; and a tension if one candidate got the majority votes and the other refused to accept his victory; this is the case most likely if President Karzai was declared a winner.

This is a very complicated situation now. By now it is clear that the winner is either Karzai or Abdullah. If the official announcement of the results provokes the failed one of them and it incites violence or stirs up tension which will eventually end up as a conflict between the Pashtoons and the Tajiks, or between the South and the North, it will divide the country and will harm the efforts against terrorism immensely, not only in Afghanistan, but in the whole region.

In the north, the notorious warlord, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, has backed President Karzai in the election, while a powerful Governor of the Balkh province, Ustad Atta Mohammad Noor, campaigned for Dr. Abdullah. A tension on the election results may provoke Gen. Dostum and his Uzbek militia to act violently. He is already unhappy with the U.S. embassy statements about his return from Turkey. But in general view, his return contributed to the perception that the election was contested on the ground of warlordism, not democratic manners. This increased some people’s contempt towards the election process in Afghanistan.

With these uncertainties prevailing in the election aftermath, the international community, particularly the U.N. and the U.S., need to recognize the need of a broad based strategy that is acceptable to both sides and, more importantly, workable and effective in situations of this nature. This step is particularly important because if a conflict arises from this tension, it will have very unsuccessful and disastrous results for a ‘successful’ election.

By Abdulhadi Hairan

‘Have not you ever seen a woman casting vote?’ asked an angry BB Jamila who was surrounded by an army of reporters and cameramen the moment she stepped inside Zarghoona High School at Shahr-e-Naw, Kabul. The reporters inundated her with questions she had never heard and had never expected that she would face such a situation in the polling center. Leaving home for the polling center, she had some hidden fears that the Taliban militants might attack, but here she was in a completely different situation: cameras flushed at her, reporters asked questions about the election, Afghanistan’s future and about the importance of women’s role. ‘Where do you think the country is heading?’ a reporter asked in Dari. She answered in a tired and uncaring voice that she was heading to cast her vote and then wanted to go to her home.

Inside the compound of the school, where the number of female voters seemed equal to the male voters, correspondents of the local and international media waited for voters to interview but the turnout was lower than they expected, so they had to wait for half of the whole day to get enough information to dispatch to their organizations.

My first visit was to the Habibia High School at Karta-e-3. The time was exactly 08:13 AM. The polling had been started about one hour earlier amid tight security. Empty roads and closed markets was a clear sign that the turnout will be low. At Habibia, this was the real case. Reporters and cameramen followed every voter to have an interview with or get some information from. Some people were willing to show their faces, others quietly left the schools leaving cameramen and reporters behind. The outspoken presidential candidate, Ramazan Bashardost cast his vote at this polling center and then started giving statements and interviews to the media. I saw no female voter entering this polling center.

Later, Dr. Ashraf Ghani also arrived at this polling center and cast his vote here. He was surrounded by a large number of campaigners who were highly optimistic about his victory despite the low turnout they could see. He also gave many statements and interviews to the media and met lot of people at the center. To my surprise, an old Kuchi man, whom I had interviewed few minutes ago and who proudly told me that he had cast his vote for Hamid Karzai, hugged him and told him that he liked him very much. After Mr. Ghani left, I asked the man if he was so fond of him and liked him so much why he voted for Karzai. He simply replied, ‘I like Ghani, he is a good man, but I voted for Karzai because I know he can lead this country better than anyone else.’

I interviewed few more people and went to another polling center: a high school at Chehal Satoon (district 7). And then to five more polling centers, including Zarghoona High School at Shahr-e-Naw. The voters were excited everywhere, but rush was nowhere. At a high school at Karta-e-9, there was a firing from somewhere close to the area, but there was no panic and the voters continued to vote. At Ghulam Haider Khan High School at Khairkhana, someone spread news that there was a blast at a polling center somewhere at the city. Yet no one left their place or looked worried. They just continued to vote and made exaggerating claims about the victory of their candidates.

At the polling centers, I interviewed 66 people and asked them whom they had voted for in order to have an idea about the popularity of the candidates. The result was that the majority of the people said they had voted for President Karzai. Following are the details of the respondents’ answers:

Habibia High School

President Hamid Karzai            9

Dr. Ashraf Ghani                         1

Dr. Abdullah Abdullah            1

Chehal Satoon

President Hamid Karzai            1

Dr. Ashraf Ghani                      1

Karta-e-9

President Hamid Karzai            2

Isteqlal High School, Park Zarnigar

President Hamid Karzai            2

Dr. Ashraf Ghani                      2

Dr. Abdullah Abdullah        1

Zarghoona High School, Shahr-e-Naw

President Hamid Karzai            7

Dr. Ashraf Ghani                      1

Dr. Abdullah Abdullah         2

Ghulam Haider Khan High School, Khairkhana

President Hamid Karzai            17

Dr. Ashraf Ghani                      3

Dr. Abdullah Abdullah         7

Ramazan Bashardost                1

Nadria High School, Karta-e-Parwan

President Hamid Karzai            4

Dr. Abdullah Abdullah             4

Total

President Hamid Karzai            42

Dr. Ashraf Ghani                          8

Dr. Abdullah Abdullah            15

Ramazan Bashardost                1

Among the people I interviewed 5 were women and the rest men. Among the men were Pashtoons, Tajik, and others. One said he was a traffic police officer. Majority of those who had voted for Karzai said they were happy with his leadership because their life conditions were improved during his presidency. A shopkeeper said he voted for Karzai because he had united the Afghans and provided better opportunities for them. He said he liked Karzai because he did not like wars and always acted wisely.

I also interviewed 10 people who were not registered voters. I asked why. 6 of them said they simply did not spare time to go to a voter registration center and register their names. 1 said they were not interested in the elections and did not care where the country was going. 1 said he was not sure whom to vote for, hence he did not try to get a voter card. 1 said he believed that democracy was against Islam.

Among the six who did not spare time for registering their names, 3 said they would have liked to vote for Karzai; one said for Dr. Ashraf Ghani; one said for Dr. Abdullah; and one said for Mirwais Yasini.

The voting is still underway and will continue until late. There is a strong possibility that a runoff will be needed.

 It was Afghanistan’s 90^th Independence Day today, the first that no one celebrated due to the complicated nature of the country’s second-ever landmark election, just hours away now. The Taliban-launched terror campaign forced the people to stay at homes and the security forces to take stricter measures for protection and safety. Even the Nato-led international peacekeeping force halted its offensive operations to protect voters around polling centers.

 Reports from different parts of the country say the election process is under attack everywhere in many shapes: attacks on polling centers, attacks on candidates, and threats to the voters. As a last attempt to change the situation in their favor, the Taliban claimed to have sent 20 suicide bombers and attackers to Kabul while the government asked media organizations to limit their reporting of violent acts of terror. It is true that the media coverage of terror acts encourages the perpetrators of violence and promotes their ambitions.

Finally, the election day arrived but amid two kinds of fear for the voters: there are voters who will be forced away from polling by the Taliban and their allies (bad fear), yet the voters who will manage to poll will still have fears about the fairness and transparency of the process (good fear). The former is related to the Afghan situation (and was experienced during Pakistan’s last election) while the latter is customary in the regional brand democracies, often based and practiced on dictatorial tendencies, conspiracy and rigging as well as different sorts of lies falsely justified by religious and political pretexts.

 Though this is the second presidential election in the country’s short democratic history, it is a real test for all the parties involved in the situation: the international community; the Afghan government; the Afghan people; and the insurgents.

 For the international community and the United States President Barack Obama, the success, or failure, of a new important strategy for the region depends on the capabilities of a new elected administration in Afghanistan.

 For the Afghan government, the test is important in many aspects: For example, how it maintains the election process, how it reacts to the people’s decision, and how it copes with or manages the situation after the polling is done and the result is out.

 For the Afghan people, it is really an experiment and a historic experience. It is they who will decide and choose the new leader, and the world is impatient to see how they will bear it if the result was not what they have been expecting (many fear for an Iran-like situation).

 And for the insurgents, this is the opportunity to show how much their strength and presence can affect or change the situation. In their case, it will shape the approach about them after the election in terms of negotiations with them or operations against them. In this context, we can say that this election is not just an event, but a series of important events full of suspense.

 Tomorrow I will visit many polling centers and will what I saw will be posted here along with photos.

By Abdulhadi Hairan

August 18

• The government requested all media organizations not to report violent acts so the voters go to polling centers less fearful. I have decided to respect the request. I have the opinion that by excessive and unnecessary coverage, the media has been playing a role in promoting violence and terrorism in this region. Pajhwok Afghan News, Afghanistan’s leading news agency, however, rejected the request and vowed to continue reporting anything happens in the country. This is a sheer indifference to the situation the country and its people have been facing. The agency called this indifference ‘truth and national interests.’
• PAN reports: Militants killed a provincial council candidate, Mullah Abdul Rahim, in northern Jwazjan province. Some people think that if the voters were sure that warlords were not going to win the election, the situation would be much different in terms of violence and security.
• While a suicide car attack near Pul-e-Charkhi area of Kabulkilled 10 and wounded more than 50, an ISAF soldier and UN workers among casualties, officials confirmed, different rumors about the election are being circulated in Kabul and across the country. There are rumors that a female presidential candidate, Shehla Atta, is missing, possibly abducted or murdered. There is another rumor that President Karzai has offered Dr. Ashraf Ghani a high position in the government if he withdrew. And there is rumor that the election is going to be postponed. Fear and rumors occupy the streets and villages.
• AP reports: The Nato-led forces will halt offensive operations during election process.
• First suicide attack on a polling station: a suicide bomber blew himself up near a polling station in Chora district of southern Oruzgan province, killing 4 ANA soldiers who were guarding the polling center and two civilians. The insurgents have launched an all-out campaign to disrupt the polling which is due in two days.
• An investigation by the BBC has found evidence of fraud and corruption in Afghanistan’s presidential election. Thousands of voting cards have been offered for sale and thousands of dollars offered in bribes to buy votes.

 August 17

• Five less known candidates withdrew from the race in favor of the incumbent Karzai. They are Hedayat Amin Arsala, Shah Mahmood Popal, Dr. Naseer Anis, Mohammad Yasin Sapai, and Hakim Torsan. The President has obviously promised them that they will be adjusted them somewhere in the government if he won the race. Mr. Karzai has to adjust a lot of warlords, former and current jihadi commanders and tribal elders in the government if he made it to the throne for another term. It will really turn our country into ‘a tribal democracy.’

• Taand.com Pashto website reports: Officials in the eastern Kunar province did not allow supporters of presidential candidate Mirwais Yasini to hold a meeting. The websites quoted a spokesman of Mr. Yasini’s election campaign in the province as saying: ‘We were eventually able to hold the meeting after a lot of efforts. The officials disrupted our gathering.’ He claimed that around 3000 tribal elders and local supporter of Mr. Yasini were participating in the meeting.

• PAN Pashto reports: Taliban threatened to close the schools used as polling centers. They got another pretext to attack on educational centers which will result in keeping the population ignorant and uneducated. This seems a war against education and democracy at the same time.

• The Defence Ministry arrested supporters of Dr. Abdullah Abdullah for airdropping election campaign posters from two helicopters, said a press release issued by the ministry. They airdropped the pamphlets in prohibited areas of Kabul city – the presidential palace and the Ministry of Defence. Was he inviting workers of the presidential palace to vote for him?

• The Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan announced that the election campaign will end on 12:00 AM Afghanistan time today. The candidates and their campaigners are asked to respect the rules and stop their campaigns after that time.

• BBC asked people in Afghanistan what they would do if they were president of Afghanistan. None of them have said what they would do with the insurgency.

• PAN Pashto reports: The Association of Bakers in Kabul city campaign for Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. They have distributed 12,000 campaign posters to garner votes for him.

• Extraordinary security measures are implemented in Kabul city in order to secure the two highly important events – Afghanistan’s 90^th Independence Day on August 19, and the upcoming presidential election on 20.

August 16

• Warlord Gen. Rashid Dostum returned to Afghanistan to make security arrangements for the election. People think he is back ‘to secure’ the north for Karzai.

• Hamid Karzai, Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai and Ramazan Bashardost outlined their priorities in the election debate arranged by RTA and Radio Free Europe. The debate was unexpectedly friendly.

• Walls in Kabul have been chalked overnight with ‘Karzai government is a failure,’ ‘Death to Karzai,’ ‘Karzai+mafia,’ ‘Don’t vote for Karzai.’ It is not clear who did the chalking.

• 500 women voiced their support for the incumbent Hamid Karzai in the western Nimroz province in the August 20 election. Also hundreds of men from the same province praised achievement of Karzai government and said they will vote for him.

• PAN Pashto reports: Taliban took away thousands of voter cards from voters in Gilan district of eastern Ghazni province. To protect people from suffering at the hands of insurgents, the government and election commission should have allowed them to vote after showing their tazkiras (national identity cards) only.

August 15

• While 2000 tribesmen promised to guard the polls in the three southeastern provinces – Khost, Paktia, and Paktika -, militants killed 5 election campaigners in one of them – Paktika. There will be yet more sacrifices for the democracy in the country.

• Sima Samar, head of the Independent Human Rights Commission of Afghanistan, has rightly told LA Times: ‘There’s been no strong debate over women’s rights in this election; it’s just not a priority. None of the major candidates speaks very boldly on the subjects. It has faded into the background.’ And that is why female candidates campaign in burqas.

• Taliban threatened to chop off voters’ fingers. It seems their leadership shura has eventually added this (chopping off fingers for votes) as a new sharia law to the law of cutting off a hand for stealing.

• Dr. Ashraf Ghani was first among the contenders to visit Zabul, the troubled southern province. He alleged that other southern provinces – Kandahar, Helmand, Oruzgan… – were ‘bought’ by Karzai’s campaigners.

• Huge suicide bomb explosion rocked Kabul city just one hour ago. There are different reports about casualties. But some say at least 6 ISAF soldiers were killed. Eyewitnesses saw wounded people being shifted to hospitals. This kind of attacks will affect the election process badly.

August 14

• People protest in eastern Nuristan province against the Election Commission. They complained that they were not issued voter cards. Police killed two of them. Means that only Taliban were not responsible for the feared unrest before the election.

• Pajhwok Afghan News reports that US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, is due in Kabul next week to monitor the polls. Good news!

August 13

• AFP reports that ‘fear of Iran-style unrest grips Afghanistan,’ and that is because, according to timesonline.co.uk, ‘President Karzai’s supporters ‘buy’ votes for Afghanistan election. An Afghan, who is educated in the United States, when I asked about his reaction, said: ‘I will be the first to protest if Karzai won the election.’ Some think it was better Mr. Karzai gave up voluntarily.

• Just back from the inauguration ceremony of Dr. Ashraf Ghani’s new book titled ‘Da A’adilana Nizam Laar (Path to the Just Order)’ which discusses his plans for effective governance, active economy, social development, international cooperation and law and order in Afghanistan. He is one of the main rivals of the incumbent Karzai in the ongoing presidential race. The nearly 300-pages book is published in Pashto, Dari and Uzbaki languages.

• Me to the taxi driver: Whom will you vote for?

Taxi driver: Me? I don’t have the vote card.

Me: Why did not you get one?

Taxi driver: I am a poor taxi driver. I could not spare the time to go to a registration office and get the voter card. I got my tazkira (Afghan national identity card) after three days efforts. Why another card is necessary for vote if I have a tazkira? And what difference my vote can bring? It is the same after Obama became president of the United States. And it will be the same after the August 20 election.

August 12

• In Kandahar, Dr. Abdullah said he will reconcile and negotiate with the militants if he won the August 20 election and became president of the country. When talking in Kabul, the argument is to eliminate them, when in Kandahar, the tone changes and it comes to talks. Interesting!

• Militants abducted Dr. Abdullah’s election campaign head in the western Badghis province. One of his campaigners was killed in Kapisa some time back. The militants want to disrupt the process with as much violence as they can, but common people’s enthusiasm for voting is encouraging.

• A gathering of over 1000 women voiced their support for Dr. Ashraf Ghani in the August 20 presidential election. Dr. Ashraf Ghani, if elected, should work to improve the conditions for women in provinces where violence against women is common. I can’t forget the sad expressions on a girl’s face in a far away province when she told the story how she was prevented from study. She wanted to learn English and use a computer, but she was not allowed to go to school.

August 11

• Second running mate of the incumbent Hamid Karzai for the presidential election, Karim Khalili, was fined 75,000 Afghanis for using a Defense Ministry helicopter in his election campaign. And the Taliban tore down contenders’ campaign posters in the eastern Khost province.

The Election Complaint Commission (ECC) can collect a large sum of money if it started fining provincial officials for using state resources for certain candidates’ election campaigns.

And it seems the Taliban were frustrated for not having the ability to attack the election candidates, so they tore down candidates’ election posters to express their hatred.

For the people of this war-ravaged country the coming election on August 20 2009 is viewed with hope as well as apprehension. There are a total of 41 candidates registered with the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan among whom only three have enough support to be considered serious contenders. They are the incumbent Hamid Karzai, Dr. Ashraf Ghani, and Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. Three lesser-known candidates have already withdrawn from the race in favour of Karzai and Abdullah.

Click to read more

 Described by the UN special envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, as the ‘most complicated,’ the 2009 Afghan presidential and provincial elections, set for August 20, are going to make history in many ways.

 During the first presidential election, held in September 2004, the people had commonly developed a hope that the coming four years will have a huge contribution to their country and the next time they will cast their votes in peace and prosperity. But they are now seeing the opposite, unfortunately.

 Besides a surge in attacks countrywide, the Taliban militants vowed on July 30th that they will try their best to prevent voters from going to polling stations to cast their votes. They have already killed many campaigners and have attacked many campaign offices in different provinces.

 On the other hand, among 41 in total, there are only two female presidential candidates this time (In the 2004 presidential election, there was 1 female among 18 total candidates). They are even not able to put their campaign posters freely on public places let alone asking people for votes. The female candidates for provincial seats have been campaigning in burqas, not because they are so fond of wearing the garment, but they have been facing opposition and are under constant threats from people around them. Some times their families also get targeted by the anti-election and anti-women elements so they use every means to hide their identity and go to the campaign meetings where only women are present. And that too after getting permission from their male relatives.

 The UN special envoy also said that around 3000 donkeys were deployed to carry the ballots to the remote areas in the provinces. This means that the areas where the donkeys have to carry the ballots do not have any roads (‘road’ here does not necessarily mean an asphalted and properly constructed road, but can be a pathway on which a vehicle just can draw itself. We have hundreds of this kind of pathways, in Afghanistan, even in the capital, Kabul, which are generally called ‘roads.’ But the areas mentioned do not have even these roads why the UN had to hire 3000 donkeys).

 Question: would the people to whom the donkeys are carrying the ballots have any idea what to do with them? Would they be aware of the election campaign, the candidates, the issues and challenges that the country has been facing and the candidates’ policies on them? Let’s hope the donkeys do not return from the villages and write down this interesting history.

 Fresh news: another rival candidate, Baz Mohammad Kofi, announced his withdrawal from the race in favor of the incumbent Hamid Karzai. What does this mean? He is the winner again!

By Abdulhadi Hairan

As Pashtuns form majority of the Afghans, candidates in the upcoming presidential election have been trying to attract as much Pashtun votes as possible because only these votes can help them to ascend the throne of Kabul as did Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun from Kandahar, in 2004.

 Tribal and ethnic relationships have always played a vital role in Afghan politics. A joke circulated here when Barack Obama visited Afghanistan during his election campaign that Gul Agha Sherzai, the governor of eastern Nangrahar province, told people that he (Barack Obama) was a Barakzai (member of the Barakzai Pashtun tribe). This was apparently an attempt to establish some relationship between the Pashtuns and the would-be American president to lessen the tension some people felt during his visit.

 Establishing ethnic and religious relationships of this kind sometimes really work. An example could be former Pakistani dictator Ziaulhaq who was fond of proving everything he did through verses from the Quran. According to insiders, once when he was going to address his nation on an Independence Day, he asked his mullah to find a verse in the Quran through which he could legitimize his dictatorship in Pakistan. By exploiting religion in this way, he ruled the country for 11 years.

 The Afghan presidential candidates are no exception. President Hamid Karzai has acquired the support of Sebghatullah Mujaddedi, a religious and jihadi leader and influential figure. His statement that God has ordered him to vote for Karzai indicates the same ‘relationship.’ Elsewhere, Dr. Abdullah’s campaigners have been trying to prove that he was born a Pashtun. The same goes with other candidates.

 However, these ‘relationships’ have attracted much criticism from Pashto websites, an independent source that give voice to individuals in a society still ruled by ruthless militants, merciless warlords, arrogant murderers, and shameless abusers of human rights.

 Many of the writers of these websites are anonymous, but they write well and hit the point. One such article on www.taand.com points out that the people who campaign for President Hamid Karzai and Dr. Abdullah in the eastern Nangrahar province are known criminals and people feel being harassed as they roam the streets.

 Another article on www.benawa.com advises President Hamid Karzai to be aware of his sycophant campaigners who are ruining his campaign and defaming his character, yet another article on the same website severely criticizes Dr. Abdullah’s campaigners for their attempts of proving him a Pashtun in bid to gain Pashtun votes.

 At the same time, www.tolafghan.com, a well-read Pashto website, has posted a news item saying that, for the first time in Afghan politics, the three hopeful candidates President Hamid Karzai, Dr. Ashraf Ghani, and Dr. Abdullah will have a debate on Thursday which will be aired live on TV and radio channels of the country. The website has invited its readers to watch the ‘interesting debate.’ People are waiting impatiently to watch the three ‘fighting.’

By Abdulhadi Hairan

 The race for the second-ever presidential election in Afghanistan has reached the highest point as the Election Day, August 20 (29 Asad 1388), approaches closer, with candidates trying to use every possible means to muster voters to their camps by promising many improvements, including a change in the current policies.

 Having realized the importance of using the internet technology and online resources in the campaign process, and impressed by its considerable effectiveness in the last American election, leading Afghan candidates, such as Dr. Abdullah, Dr. Ashraf Ghani, and Mirwais Yasini have, for the first time, launched websites for their election campaigns and their campaigners have been using social networks, such as facebook, youtube, twitter, and different blogs providing services, to regularly provide updated information and stay connected with the voters in and out of the country. These online resources have proved to be helpful to raise donations too. According to a post on techpresident.com,

 So [Ashraf] Ghani has spotted an opportunity to use the web in two ways: utilize word-of-mouth and encourage local influencers to spread the word in their communities; and to target the large Afghan ex-pat population in the West for political donations and to amplify their views back into their homeland.

 A total of 41 candidates, among whom two are female, are in the field for the race while more than 15 million voters have been registered in all 34 provinces to choose a new leader for the country which is facing an appallingly growing insurgency, the big obstacle in the successful election process as well as the country’s development and reconstruction efforts.

 Hopefully, despite the deteriorating security situation in southern and southeastern provinces and recent attacks on election campaigners (On July 15, unknown gunmen killed Haji Abdul Sattar, the campaigner for Dr. Abdullah, in Kapisa’s Nijrab district and a grenade attack took place on Hamid Karzai’s election campaign center for women in the southern Zabul province), rallies and gatherings are being held in provinces in which large numbers of supporters voice support for the contenders of their choice and convey to their countrymen a message of their concern for their country’s future.

 Unlike the 2004 presidential campaign, in which President Hamid Karzai was much ahead from his rivals (he won with over 55 percent votes, three times more than any other candidate), this election seems to be a tough and tense competition because none of the candidates is so far able to show too much support from people to help him\her to be perceived as a clear winner. In addition, by announcing a joint strategy, opponents of President Hamid Karzai have vowed that they will not let him to win easily.

 “We have one competitor, and we are focused on the one competitor,’ Ashraf Ghani, the hopeful candidate and former finance minister, told Nancy A. Youssef of mcclatchydc.com on July 14, 2009.

 Similar views were expressed by some other candidates rival to President Karzai, and though he may have reserved a good amount of electoral votes by mustering support of a few powerful and influential commanders and tribal leaders, it is sure that he faces a hard battle for winning.

 On the other end, for security purposes on the poll day, additional foreign troops may be deployed to alleviate voters’ fear about going to polling stations and protect and enable foreign observers and media correspondents to oversee the process.

 As election is the most important event and basic requirement for a democratic system and vital for improvements in people’s lives, the active participation of Afghan youth groups, media organizations, tribal elders, students and common people is a good omen for the building up of democracy and democratic values in Afghanistan.

 No doubt that the country’s worsening security situation does not allow candidates, their supporters and common voters to get together, and visit and listen to each other freely, but the local TV channels, FM radios, Pashto and Dari websites and social networks, and mobile messaging services provide them this opportunity through live debates, political discussions, news updates, opinion pieces, campaign announcements, and sending short messages on mobile phones.

 Keeping all these paradox factors in mind, one cannot predict exactly which path the situation will go in near future, yet one can hope that if there are no major flaws and unexpected delays in the process, the interest of voters will increase and the polling will be completed successfully.