LONDON, 18 August 2004 — Afghan President Hamid Karzai vowed in comments published yesterday to create a clean, efficient government that serves the people rather than itself if he were re-elected in a landmark election in October. In an interview with the Financial Times he said his next administration would be free of the interest groups that many Afghans and foreign allies feel have frustrated the efforts of his current government.
“In Afghanistan it is not the people who have broken the law, it’s governments that have broken the law. That is what I want to stop,” he said from his office in the capital Kabul. “There cannot be individual agendas in my government,” said Karzai, who was confirmed as president in 2002 by Afghanistan’s traditional Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly) of tribal elders.
He is favorite to win Afghanistan’s first democratic election, even after snubbing as running mate his powerful Defense Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim, who has resisted efforts to disarm unruly militia.
“I felt it was needed for Afghanistan to have an agenda that would take us forward into a reformist system ... based on strict government discipline,” Karzai said. “The continuation of private militia forces is out of the question,” he said.
Almost 10 million Afghans had put down their names and thumbprints as registration drew to a close on Sunday. Karzai stopped short of predicting victory in the first round on Oct. 9. “I hope God will be kind to me and make me win and I will work for it,” he said. He needs to win 51 percent of the votes to score a first-round victory.
Karzai is facing 17 other candidates in the landmark poll, when Afghans will have their first chance to choose their president. Karzai, from the ethnic Pushtun majority, has headed Afghanistan’s interim administrations since the Bonn conference of December 2001, in the wake of the five-year Taleban regime’s collapse under a US-led military assault for refusing to hand over Osama Bin Laden.
Speculation is rife in Kabul that deals are being negotiated among presidential candidates, especially the powerful commanders of the anti-Taleban Northern Alliance which helped drive the Taleban from power.
Karzai’s bold decision to run for re-election without Fahim, a top Northern Alliance figure and part of the powerful ethnic Tajik bloc from the Panjsher Valley, has triggered a concerted push from northern Afghan figures to move against him.
Yunus Qanuni, a Tajik Panjsheri who was education minister in Karzai’s Cabinet, quit the government to run for president and has emerged as Karzai’s most serious challenger. Key ministers have pledged to back Qanuni.
The US-backed incumbent is still considered the favorite, but Qanuni’s candidacy has dimmed his chances of a first-round victory.
While ruling out deals, Karzai said he was open to welcoming anyone who shared his vision of “a reformist system ... based on strict government discipline ... a government of achievement.”
The European Union will send experts to support and monitor the elections, the European Commission said yesterday. The 25-strong EU Democracy and Support Mission was approved after the commission pledged 24 million euros in support for the poll, making the EU the biggest international backer of the elections.
“The mission will assess key aspects of the (ballots) and, upon completion of the process, will make recommendations for the future regarding the electoral and wider democratization processes,” the commission said. Commission funds combined with pledges from EU member states make Europe the largest single donor to the elections, covering half of voter registration expenses and over 40 percent of the cost of organizing the polls, it added.
