So it finally happened. The election that
we've been waiting for and looking forward to at least since last winter took
place yesterday all over the country. I'll refrain from writing anything about
the rest of the country. There are plenty of places to get a good sense
of what happened. Make sure to check out www.aliveinafghanistan.org and the
various
people who've been tweeting news all day from the ground around the
country. I'll just be talking about the things in Kandahar that I saw and was able to confirm
from here on the ground.
There weren't so many foreign journalists down here and most are unlikely to
publish detailed accounts of what happened and the things that they saw; NPR
decided not to run a piece on the election down here, judging that "one
piece from Kabul was enough."
Violence
Things were a lot calmer than anyone would have hoped for, I'm glad to
report. Not the mass waves of suicide bombers or IEDs lining the road. In
fact the casualty count was quite low: Kandahar's
police chief told me at close of business yesterday that two children and one
adult had been killed during the day and that two others had been
injured. The man who died was probably the first casualty of the day, a
military commander called Dost Mohammad and who was out running in a field when
a rocket struck close by and he was hit by the shrapnel.
Pajhwok was reporting in the morning that at least six IEDs had been removed
from the roads in Kandahar
City. An Afghan National
Army commander who spoke to us on condition of anonymity said that 16 or 17 rockets
hit the city during the course of the elections. During the night there
were not rockets or attacks it seems, apart from the story I just heard from a
policeman here at the airport that five armed men managed to get onto KAF
airfield last night. They were searching all night, apparently.
In Kandahar it
seems the Afghan government's imposition of a ban on any negative coverage of
the election during voting hours wasn't upheld much, if at all. I spoke to
a photojournalist yesterday who said he was actually given a police escort to
one of the sites where a rocket hit.
The rockets, starting at 6:30am local time, were probably responsible for some
people deciding not to go out and vote, but I don't think it had an
overwhelming effect in this respect. Most people had decided either way a long
time ago, and in any case -- as I'll come to later -- apathy was particularly
intense for this election.
My personal experience was a lot like what it's usually like in Kandahar. There were
some isolated incidents -- a couple of rockets landed quite close to us near
the end of the day -- but on the whole it was quite easy relaxed day.
Some police manning crossroads in town were a bit edgy and conducted searches
of cars at gunpoint, but for the most part the police were somewhat laid back;
at quite a few voting stations my colleagues and I were allowed in without body
searches or ID checks.
Turnout
I imagine this will be quite
an important issue in the coming weeks, perhaps more so than allegations of
fraud and vote-rigging. I visited almost a dozen voting stations in
different parts of Kandahar
City, including two
female-only locations, and nowhere was there intense activity. We made
sure to get to the big locations in the city center as well as smaller places
in the west and east of town. (Read on)
By Alex Strick van Linschoten, Kandahar, Afghanistan
With only four days to go before the elections, I thought it
might be useful to comment on how the opposition candidates' rallies went this
past week. Myself and my colleague
were graced with the presence of a good half dozen members of the international
press corps this week, and in all likeliness you'll read several pieces from
Kandahar in the next few days.
I've just seen Jon Boone did one for
the Observer which isn't that bad.
Give it a read.
Wednesday the 12th was Abdullah's day in town. The old Communist governor of Kandahar,
Noor ul-Haq Ulumi, who was responsible for buying off the mujahedeen in greater
Kandahar at the end of the anti-Soviet war had come down a few days earlier to
meet elders and prepare for the rally.
He chose an empty patch of land next to his house as the site for the
rally, and people began to arrive there early in the morning.
All over the city that morning, Abdullah's posters and
billboards had been restrung and reposted as if to pretend that they all hadn't
been defaced and dirtied by his opponents. There were surprisingly few security checks at the rally,
something I've heard from many others about previous rallies he did elsewhere,
and an attempt on his life seemed a very real possibility.
In the hours before Abdullah himself showed up, there was
the traditional atan dancing, and a
small group chosen out of the hundreds of women gathered there practiced their
"Abdullah Abdullah" chants.
The presence of women/girls was interesting, and much noted by the
largely uneducated crowd that had come (read: been summoned) to the rally. It was not a common feature at
political rallies down south, for obvious reasons, and the only reason people
could come up with was that Ulumi "was a Communist and the Communists used
to do this all the time."
People also speculated (Abdullah was several hours late;
there was plenty of time for chit-chat) as to where the girls had come
from. In all likelihood they were
Farsi-speaking girls, born in Iran but returned in the past few years to
Kandahar where their families had moved back. Most of this small but influential community of young girls
-- Farsi-speakers make up a significant proportion of Kandahar's school-going
girls -- are literate, often quite well-educated, so they at least understood
that they were at a political rally, what it was for etc.
The police officer in charge of security at the rally made
an announcement on the loudspeaker system: "If anyone brought any weapons
in with them, please hand them in to us.
If we find them on you later, we won't be so pleasant about
it." Great, I thought, they're
not even pretending to have security precautions in place.
It was really, really, really hot, even under the makeshift
tents, but finally Abdullah came.
[Conversation from the crowd:
A: Which one's Abdullah?
B: He's the one with the turban.
A: That one? He
doesn't look like I thought he would.]
Ulumi had put together a premier list of speakers, all of
whom attested to Abdullah's Pashtun-ness, his Kandahari roots, and his
suitability for the post. The
problem was, nobody was really listening to the speeches, too concerned with
fanning themselves and wondering when it would all be over and lunch would
start.
Ezat Wasefi, former governor of Farah, spoke, as did Hajji
Obaidullah and Ulumi himself. All
of the speeches were reactive in tone, spending more time criticising Karzai
(in all the colours of the rainbow) and responding to criticisms that Abdullah
wasn't a real Pashtun. "He's
from Kandahar, he's a Pashtun, I know his family and I saw him here in the
past," said one, as if that was going to overwrite all the bad feeling in
the city at Abdullah's attempt to "be Pashtun."
In the end, I left early, bored by Abdullah and his fake
rally, bored by the utterly dead crowd.
Ashraf Ghani (in Kandahar more commonly identified by the
last part of his name, 'Ahmadzai') was more interesting. Determined not to make the same mistake
of turning up hours before the rally as with Abdullah, this time I arrived
late, presumably missing a few of the speeches, and had to fight my way up
several flights of stairs, through at least five full body pat-downs and a
visibly edgy security guard at the entrance to the main salon upstairs.
In the main salon itself there was space for around 1500,
but many more had turned up so Ahmadzai's supporters spilled out onto the road,
shouting to be allowed in.
Last week saw one major newspaper suggest that Abdullah was
'the Afghan Obama' on account of his mixed ethnicity; to my mind, though, the
support base of Ahmadzai and its strong contingent of the young and the
educated is more reminiscent of an Obama campaign. Indeed, most of the people who managed to get into the
speech hall were under 30 years old.
In Kandahar, where educational opportunities are few and cultural stigma
works against the educated class, Ahmadzai seems to represent a change that
people could actually visualise.
Once again, though, the speeches that I caught were mainly
focused on criticising Karzai and the fruits of his administration:
- administrative corruption
- "guns and democracy don't go together"
- Karzai's government as a 'millionaire's club'
- etc
Ahmadzai's speech itself was much more forceful than I would
have imagined, with a rasp in his voice and the face of a serious man. I imagine his high educated style of
Pashtu worked against him a little, but he made up for his deficiencies in
speech with a good burst of Kandahari and Pashtun pride.
His more populist positions always drew a cheer and clapping
from the crowd, and he even got in a good deal of criticism of foreign forces
(on the drug problem: "If the foreigners are so weak that they can't even
stop drugs from going into their own countries, then why do they claim to be so
powerful after all?")
He took pains to stress that he understood Kandahar, and the
problems of the people. "I
spent many years studying in America, but remember this: I also drank water
from the village well."
He spent a good ten or fifteen minutes explaining some of
the things he planned to do if he were to win: creating jobs, houses, improving
security, economic plans etc. At
least that was an improvement on Abdullah.
Almost as soon as he arrived, he was gone again, on his way
to Farah for a six o'clock meeting there.
In the end, the rallies of Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani said
less about what might happen on election day -- I think we all have a pretty
good idea about that -- but revealed more about the aspirations of Kandahar's
young generation. Very little is
written about this large section of society, but a repeat of the Karzai regime
is not going to do much for them.
The best they can hope for is to earn enough money to get out -- to
Kabul, to India, anywhere else.
Aside from that small possibility, their future looks bleak.
[UPDATE: Karzai supporters held a rally for him today in
Kandahar Football Stadium and it's worth a few comments:]
Presumably conceived in reaction to the two big rallies for
Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, Ahmed Wali Karzai (the president's half-brother) put
on a huge rally held in Kandahar's football stadium today. As you can see in the video above,
there were lots of people there, far more than were present at Ashraf Ghani or
Abdullah's rallies.
People came from all over the city, again and as for the
previous rallies for the excitement of 'something' happening in town, but also
because all government departments were closed for today and officials
requested to attend the rally. All
schools were also closed, and buses present to take girls, boys and teachers to
the stadium. A rumour went round
that teachers' salaries would be paid at the stadium -- teachers in Kandahar
haven't been paid for a couple of months -- but I was unable to confirm
this. It was a good demonstration
of the power that the state still has: who says Karzai has to use his incumbent
powers to win the election, eh?
We initially heard that Karzai himself was coming to the
rally, but once we arrived were told this wasn't the case. Lots of women were present, a mix of
schoolgirls and others, again more than had turned out for Abdullah, but they
sat in a separate place far from the larger men-only stage area.
As for the esteemed and respected guests, it was an
impressive gathering. A glance
round the stage and those seated nearby revealed a who's who of Kandahar:
tribal elders, mujahedeen commanders, government officials, youth leaders and
so on. Almost all of the speakers
referred to this in their speeches: "Look around you," Ahmed Wali
said. "The other candidates
brought one or two people from Kandahar as their friends from Kabul. We have everyone here to support
us. There isn't a well-known
figure perhaps who isn't here."
It was a highly impressive display of power, but fake
nonetheless.
Afghanmal, provincial council member, noted how all the
opposition candidates had come to Kandahar and said that they were Pashtuns,
that they were originally Kandaharis, that they had Kandahari friends, uncles
and mothers, but that Karzai was the real deal.
Hajji Karim Khan, speaking second, warned people that if
they didn't vote that maybe Karzai would get more votes from Herat or Mazar and
that would be shameful for the people of Kandahar when he was reelected... not
the strongest endorsement...
Khalid Pashtun spoke and told people they needed to be
realistic in their expectations of the regime. 100% success isn't possible, he said.
Ahmed Wali himself took pains to stress how much his
half-brother was working for the country.
"Have you ever heard that Karzai took a holiday? Have you ever heard that he went for a
picnic in someone's garden as is our habit? No! He works
for the country from eight in the morning until seven at night."
He also called on the Taliban to stop destroying the
country. If Pashtuns don't stop
fighting, he said, development money currently earmarked for Kandahar will be
allocated to other provinces. And
the foreigners and their money won't be here forever, he warned.
Responding to allegations of fraud: "People say that
I'm buying up voting cards. Look
at all these people gathered here!
Why should I need to buy cards?"
None of the other speakers said anything especially
interesting, and the rally passed without incident. I think it's clear from all of this how Kandahar will vote
when we get to Thursday...
Alex Strick van Linschoten is a journalist based in
Kandahar. This was originally posted on his blog.
For outsiders, Kandahar was never really somewhere you could fall in
love with. You know the kind of thing I mean: places people went to
honeymoon, places with a certain ineluctable quality to them ... Back in
the seventies, when Kandahar was a popular stopover city on the hippy
trail to Kabul and India, one such traveller even described it as "a
gentle oasis."
These days, Kandahar is the city of nobody's dreams.
Pace Farnaz Fassihi,
living in Kandahar is like being under virtual house arrest. Most days
I stay at home, travel somewhere only when I have something specific to
do there -- a meeting, something I want to see -- and am forced to enjoy
Kandahar at a distance. True, I'm lucky enough to have a great balcony
view over the town and all the way down to where the desert starts.
This
also isn't to say I don't get out at all. Arghandab is a regular stop
for a picnic or a swim on the weekends, and within the city most travel
is more or less going to be OK. Nevertheless, caution pays dividends
(as stencilled letters on one taxi here informed me); the two big risks
for foreigners in the city are kidnapping and being in the wrong place
at the wrong time when a bomb goes off.
This happens increasingly often. Those who follow my Twitter
postings -- an easier way to get news out when there isn't enough
information to justify a full blog post -- will have noticed the upward
trend this past year in pictures of post-explosion clouds of debris, or
holes in the ground where IEDs were laid.
Occasionally a troupe
of journalists make their way into the city, but only for three or four
days, and almost always working on a specific story; no more time to
leisurely get to know Kandahar, no time for picnics...
When did
it turn sour? 2006 was probably the turning point for the province,
with all out battles in the districts and all sorts of mess within the
city. To the average observer abroad, Kandahar must seem rather
stable. Reports from the city describing the atmosphere and downward
spiral are scarce to be found, and generally it takes the death of a
foreign soldier or at least a dozen Afghan casualties to qualify for a
Kandahar dateline.
I compile a list of violent incidents in the
greater Kandahar area from open source and local sources each day. A
year ago, that list would hardly ever exceed one page. Nowadays, it's
not unusual to reach three pages: a list of bombs, murders, executions,
attacks and threats. It's enough work keeping up with all of that, but
then there's all the personal stories of how people get through their
days.
It's nearly impossible to get a decent sense of what's
going on in the districts. The international media stick exclusively
(with some reason, albeit qualified) to embeds to get a sense of
southern Afghanistan. I heard rumours the other day that a well-known
American journalist is thinking of repeating the success of a book that
he wrote reporting in Baghdad: this time he's doing one on Kandahar,
though this time exclusively from time spent doing embeds...
Local
journalism -- despite the best efforts of a dedicated group -- is
reactive for the most part, responding to some bomb blast or
assassination rather than actively generating content or a sense of
what it means live in Kandahar.
In fact, the only way to get a
sense of life in the districts is to step into the shoes -- albeit
briefly -- of those that live there. You want to find out how safe the
roads are between the city and the districts: step into a taxi and run
the gauntlet for yourself. I'll be writing more about my attempts to
get a sense of what's going on in the western district of Maiwand in
the coming weeks, but this is the kind of thing that you have to submit
yourself to if you really want to get an accurate handle on what is
going on and how things are for people living there.
I've always
advocated that journalists ought to be writing more about Kandahar, and
writing more from outside military bases or press conferences. Despite
the danger, southern Afghanistan is an incredibly important locus of
what's going on in the country right now -- with the elections, with
the Taliban, with Pakistan, with the US military, with NATO forces --
and it seems morally indefensible to my mind not to be paying close
attention to all these causes and effects jumbling up against each
other.
The population in the city and the outer villages brace
themselves against all these manifestations of violence. A common
saying these days upon parting company is, "I'll see you soon, if we're
still alive." Educated Kandaharis are scared; many leave for Kabul, or
abroad if they are lucky (or rich) enough to have visas for foreign
travel.
Tribal elders remain mute, or also depart for Kabul. The elders or religious figures of authority (mullahs and so on) in the
districts are forced to tread a firmly non-committal line, not annoying
NATO, not annoying the Afghan government, not annoying the Taliban, not
annoying the drug dealers...
Election gossip is all the rage
these days, even in some of the worse-off districts. The posters of
provincial council candidates are all over town, and "the bazaar is
warm" (as the local saying goes) for the (illegal) purchase and
exchange of voter cards. As one prominent local figure put it to me
yesterday: "The election has to happen, one way or another. The
foreigners have spent so much money in our country already. They're
paying another $130 million for this round of elections. What would
they say if we couldn't at least give them some elections?"
So
the elections will take place. It's a good opportunity to shuffle the
cards and jiggle the networks of power all over the country, but nobody
-- at least not anybody living here -- has any illusion that these
elections will be free or fair.
Alex Strick van Linschoten is a journalist based in Kandahar. His post was originally featured on his blog at Frontline.
