U.S. Hand Seen in Afghan Election
Some candidates
say the embassy pressured them not to run against President Karzai. American
officials deny the accusations.
KABUL, Afghanistan Mohammed Mohaqiq says he was getting ready to make his
run for the Afghan presidency when U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad dropped
by his campaign office and proposed a deal.
"He told me to drop out of the elections, but not in a way to put pressure,"
Mohaqiq said. "It was like a request."
After the hourlong meeting last month, the ethnic Hazara warlord said in an
interview Tuesday, he wasn't satisfied with the rewards offered for
quitting, which he did not detail. Mohaqiq was still determined to run for
president though, he said, the U.S. ambassador wouldn't give up trying to
elbow him out of the race.
"He left, and then called my most loyal men, and the most educated people in
my party or campaign, to the presidential palace and told them to make me or
request me to resign the nomination. And he told my men to ask me what I
need in return."
Mohaqiq, who is running in the Oct. 9 election, is one of several candidates
who maintain that the U.S. ambassador and his aides are pushing behind the
scenes to ensure a convincing victory by the pro-American incumbent,
President Hamid Karzai. The Americans deny doing so.
"It is not only me," Mohaqiq said. "They have been doing the same thing with
all candidates. That is why all people think that not only Khalilzad is like
this, but the whole U.S. government is the same. They all want Karzai and
this election is just a show."
The charges were repeated by several other candidates and their senior
campaign staff in interviews here. They reflected anger over what many
Afghans see as foreign interference that could undermine the shaky
foundations of a democracy the U.S. promised to build.
"This doesn't suit the representative of a nation that has helped us in the
past," said Sayed Mustafa Sadat Ophyani, campaign manager for Younis Qanooni,
Karzai's leading rival. "You have seen Afghanistan suffering for 25 years,
from the Russians, then the Taliban. Why is the U.S. government now looking
to make people of Afghanistan accept whatever the U.S. government says?"
Qanooni said he and 13 other presidential candidates planned to meet today
in Kabul, the capital, to air complaints about Khalilzad's interference.
In a statement released this week, Khalilzad denied the allegations that he
and his staff were meddling in the election.
"U.S. Embassy officials regularly keep in touch with all presidential
candidates, and we listen to their ideas and proposals," he said in an
e-mailed response from New York, where he was attending the opening of the
U.N. General Assembly.
"Officials from the U.S. mission support the elections process, not
individuals," the statement added. "No U.S. official can or will endorse or
campaign on behalf of any individual presidential candidate."
Khalilzad also said he "has never asked a candidate to withdraw this is a
decision for each candidate to make for him or herself."
Since coming to power after the American-led invasion that overthrew the
Taliban in 2001, the interim Afghan government largely has been beholden to
the United States for its survival. The U.S. has deployed about 18,000
troops and is spending about $1 billion a year on reconstruction in the
Central Asian nation. Karzai depends on the Americans for his safety:
DynCorp, a Virginia-based firm, has provided his bodyguards since November
2002 under a contract with the State Department.
Khalilzad has been nicknamed "the Viceroy" because the influence he wields
over the Afghan government reminds some Afghans of the excesses of British
colonialism. Some of Karzai's rivals think that the ambassador has taken on
a new role: presidential campaign manager.
This is not the first time Khalilzad has been accused of meddling in Afghan
politics. Delegates to gatherings that named Karzai interim president in
2002 and ratified Afghanistan's new Constitution last December also accused
the ambassador of interfering, even of paying delegates for their support.
Khalilzad denies the claims.
The latest allegations are perhaps more serious because the Bush
administration is portraying Afghanistan's presidential election as a
democratic victory for the country's people, who suffered under more than
two decades of strife. President Bush has touted bringing Afghan democracy
as a foreign policy success in his election campaign.
There are 18 candidates in the Afghan election. Such a divided field is
expected to favor Karzai, whom Afghans hear and see frequently on
state-controlled radio and television.
The president, who is usually holed up in his heavily fortified palace
because of threats to his life, has made only one campaign trip outside
Kabul since the election campaign began Sept. 7. That trip last Thursday was
aborted when a rocket missed the U.S. military helicopter in which he was
traveling.
Mohaqiq commands strong loyalty among Hazaras and, if he chooses to step
aside and endorse Karzai, probably could deliver a large bloc of votes.
Mohaqiq said Tuesday that he might still do so for the right deal.
Mohaqiq said his senior aides met the U.S. ambassador at the presidential
palace, without Karzai. The aides agreed try again to persuade their
candidate to drop out of the race and throw his support behind the
incumbent, Mohaqiq said.
The pressure was so intense that he agreed to quit under certain conditions,
he added.
Mohaqiq said his demands, in the event of Karzai's victory, would be four
Cabinet posts for his party, four governorships in the mainly Hazara
provinces of central Afghanistan and a new road from Kabul into the region,
informally known as Hazarajat.
Mohaqiq said Khalilzad told him that the new road would not be a problem,
but that his party would have to settle for two ministerial posts, two
deputy spots in other ministries and one governorship.
"I was very interested in taking part in the elections, but since many of my
men were asking me to accept Khalilzad's ideas and he was also telling me to
do so I didn't have much choice, and I was ready to agree," Mohaqiq said.
"But a good thing happened, and Karzai didn't agree with those terms," he
added. "I don't know why."
Several leaders of the Northern Alliance, whose troops ousted the Taliban
regime in late 2001 with the help of U.S. air power, met in Kabul on Friday
to discuss what they said was Khalilzad's electoral arm-twisting, said
Mohammed Qasem Mohseni, one of presidential candidate Abdul Latif Pedram's
two running mates.
Mohseni said the summit participants included Foreign Minister Abdullah, who
goes by one name; former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who like Abdullah is
a member of the Tajik minority; and Ustad Abdul Rasul Sayyaf who, like
Karzai, is a Pushtun, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group.
"In this meeting, Ustad Sayyaf said that we have been under pressure for 25
days by the U.S. government, by Khalilzad, to make Younis Qanooni resign
from the post of candidate for the presidency," Mohseni said.
Qanooni is not expected to win the race. However, he could prevent Karzai
from gaining more than 50% of the votes, forcing a runoff and prolonging a
campaign that already has drawn violent attacks by Taliban and other
insurgents.
Qanooni's campaign aides said Khalilzad was trying to persuade the candidate
to accept defeat before any ballots were counted and to agree to join Karzai
in a coalition government after the vote.
"Our hearts have been broken because we thought we could have beaten Mr.
Karzai if this had been a true election," Ophyani said. "But it is not. Mr.
Khalilzad is putting a lot of pressure on us and does not allow us to fight
a good election campaign."
Some say Khalilzad is working to draw Rabbani, the former president, to
Karzai's side, which would deepen the split in Qanooni's Northern Alliance.
Qanooni supporters say that Rabbani, whose son-in-law is one of Karzai's
running mates, visited Badakhshan province last month with Khalilzad and
urged local militia commanders to back the incumbent. The former president
insists that the discussions in his home province dealt only with
reconstruction.
"I told Mr. Khalilzad, 'The people of Badakhshan are waiting for you, and
they are always asking, what is the U.S. government doing?' " Rabbani said.
"I told him to go there and see the people, and he promised to construct a
road and a dam for them."
There is nothing wrong with the U.S. ambassador working closely with
Afghanistan's president as long as he only offers advice and doesn't make
decisions, Rabbani added.
"I believe that Mr. Karzai and Khalilzad are linked very closely with each
other now and they were in the past too," Rabbani said. "And when they have
links, they probably have political links or any other kind of links."
Khalilzad is running the election campaign of Karzai.
Pakistan should not involve in Afghan election: Rahimullah Yousafzai.
Rahimullah Yousafzai is one of the well known Journalist and Political analysts of Pakistan. He has been collaborating with a lot of news agencies including BBC. Rahimullah Yousafzai is also supposed to be one of the experts in Afghan affairs. He traveled Afghanistan many times, even during the time of Taliban. He was talking on Views and News on ARY ONE channel Friday 24th of September 2004. He expressed some of his very interesting views and disclosed some useful information.
Rahimullah Yousafzai told that Pakistan and America both wish Karzai to win the presidential elections being held on October 9th 2004. He said that Karzai is very well known to Pakistan Government and has had good relations with them for a long time. Karzai is a Pashtun from Qandahar and who lived in Quetta for around 20 years during the Soviet occupation. He further added Pakistan would be again nearest place that would grant him asylum if he is defeated or throw out of Afghanistan.
Regarding the role of America he told that the US ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmai Khalilzad is personally running the election campaign of Karzai and busy convincing his opponents to withdraw in favor of him. He said that Karzai doesnt have enough support to run the country without the presence of US led coalition forces and that is why he always emphasizes that the present number of coalition forces is not enough and must be increased substantially.
He advised Pakistan to be careful toward the afghan election and ensure a free and fair elections among the refugees in the camps based in Pakistan because the Northern Alliance leaders, who did not have good relations with Pakistan, were already expressing their doubts about the election in the camps in Pakistan.
When he was asked about any possible role or coalition with Taliban, he said that the Taliban seems not to be interested in a coalition with Karzai. Though Karzai recently released the former Taliban foreign minister Molavi Abdul Wakil Mutawakil and had many rounds of meeting with him and as well as with another famous Taliban leader Mulla Ghous. He mentioned that both of these men are not in any position to play a major role in breaking Taliban. He told that Molavi Abdul Wakil Mutawakil was offered the post of advisor minister to Karzai which he didnt accept and as a second option was asked to make a party that would undermine Taliban loyalists. Mr. Yusafzai believes that Mutawakil is not much capable of carrying out such a big job. Yusafzai pointed out that the final way kept open for Mutawakil was to take asylum in a western country which he refused and expressed his wish to take asylum in one of the Arabic countries like Saudi Arabia or UAE etc.
When asked about Alqaida and Taliban leaders, Yusafzai stated: I dont think that Mulla Omar and Osama is somewhere together. He told that Aimen ul Zawahiri seems to be around Pakistan and Afghan border and he is more experienced and senior then Osama. When was asked how he can claim that about the presence of Aiman ul Zawahi in those areas, he said that the locations in his video tapes seem very similar to the Pakistan-Afghan border areas and both his audio and video tapes are sent to the various news agencies from Pakistan. He also mentioned that Qandahar, Hilmand, Orazgan and Zabul are the various Afghan provinces where still Taliban have a powerful presence.
