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.

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.