KABUL, 13 October 2004 — The fate of Afghanistan’s landmark election and hopes of preventing factional violence lie with Yunus Qanuni, the favored candidate of a powerful anti-Taleban alliance of northerners, analysts said.
Qanuni has withdrawn a threat to refuse to recognize the poll results after lobbying by Western diplomats and the establishment of an international panel to look into fraud allegations resulting from the failure of indelible ink during voting.
He was one of 14 candidates to claim widespread fraud and demand the ballot be scrapped, but his stance is seen as the most important for the credibility of the future government.
“It is important for Qanuni particularly (to accept the result) as it will provide a legitimacy for the outcome of the election, which might otherwise be questioned,” Vikram Parekh, senior Afghan affairs analyst for the International Crisis group, told AFP.
“Qanuni is considered to be one of the few main and important candidates, so his stance on the result is important,” said Nasrullah Staniczai, professor of political science at Kabul University.
Qanuni, who was education minister in Karzai’s interim Cabinet, is part of the ethnic Tajik clique of commanders from the Panjshir Valley, north of Kabul, who dominated Karzai’s government, leading to accusations that Karzai was merely the Pashtun face of a government run by rival Tajiks. Pashtuns, the largest of Afghanistan’s patchwork of ethnic groups from which the former Taleban regime filled its ranks, have felt sidelined in the post-Taleban administration by minority Tajiks.
Qanuni had the public backing of northern Tajik heavyweights Mohammad Qasim Fahim, the defense minister, and Abdullah Abdullah, the foreign minister. They were senior leaders of the anti-Taleban Northern Alliance.
Fahim was humiliatingly overlooked by Karzai as his vice presidential running mate, and during the campaign he broke his silence to publicly scorn Karzai as a US puppet, making public the ethnic divisions in the Cabinet.
The likes of Fahim and Qanuni, plus another warlord candidate Mohammed Mohaqeq from the Hazara minority, draw their prestige from their resistance to Soviet occupation in the 1980s and for driving the Taleban from power, with US assistance, in late 2001.
Also in their ranks are western Afghan warlord Ismael Khan, a major anti-Soviet hero, and northern-based Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum. “Qanuni, Abdullah and Fahim are important because of the role they had resisting Taleban and Al-Qaeda, they were on the front-line fighting them,” Staniczai said. “Later their role in the interim and transitional administration is important.”
If the Northern Alliance leaders reject the election result, the country could be headed for crisis.
“I think the opposition will not have enough legitimate political activities, and from time to time they will cause violence and military clashes,” warned Staniczai. If they accept the outcome, the winner - widely expected to be Karzai — may have no choice but to include them in the future government.
“If the winner is Karzai, who says he would do whatever possible good for the national interests of this country, I think he would have to bring these men into the government,” Staniczai said.
Parekh dismissed the prospect of violence, but saw potential trouble for the drive to disarm the private armies of warlords and regional commanders. Unofficial militiamen are believed to number between 40,000 and 60,000.
“The greater danger would be retarding the process on (disarmament) and recognizing appointments by central government,” the ICG analyst said.
“The question is how far Karzai is going to negotiate with one or more and sideline the others. There are people around Karzai urging him not to engage in negotiations with the Northern Alliance.”
