Afghan Election Breakdown The present standoff in Afghanistan between Dr. Abdullah and his followers and Mr. Ghani and his followers mirrors an old divide which has plagued Afghanistan for decades and even has some American analysts in tension. The fault line is rooted in ethnicity and is one of the layers of problems that will be a challenge to Afghanistan’s survival in the future. Ashraf Ghani is a Pashtun and has the backing of the Pashto people who allegedly comprise about 45% of the Afghan population. (This figure is disputed and some claim that the Tajiks are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan.) They are spread widely across Afghanistan but are most concentrated in the mountains that border Pakistan. President Karzai is a Pashtun. Both the Pakistani and Afghan Talibans are also a Pashtun political organizations having virtually no other members of other Afghan ethnic backgrounds. Traditionally, the Pashto have been the ruling regents of Afghanistan until the Soviet backed regimes were installed. But Mr. Ghani was formerly working for the World Bank and was unknown to Afghans until he was installed initially as Finance Minister under Karzai by the Bonn Agreement which engineered the first post Taliban government. It is not at all clear that he even has the full backing of most Pashtuns. The Ghani camp has been accused of having rigged the election to make it seem as if Ghani was the victor. There is more than ample evidence to back that claim up. Now that Afghanistan has a working cell phone service, most Afghans are aware of the situation as well. Dr. Abdullah is also half Pashto and Half Tajik. But he has the strong backing of the Tajik people and most of the other ethnic groups in Afghanistan. The alliance of the other ethnic Afghans was initially put together by a very famous commander during the Soviet occupation years, Ahmad Shah Massoud. He was a most effective commander who wielded authority based on respect rather than fear which is very unlike Pashto organizations. He even managed to attract some Pashto commanders to his militia. The unifying vision that they still advocate to this day, is one of plurality and a shared sense of being Afghans regardless of ethnic background. They regard themselves as “anti tribalists” and are deeply committed to fight against what they see as the “tribalist” vision of the Pashto. This pro unity vision literally liberated many people who, under Pashto national leadership, could expect to be second class citizens at best. It has even attracted some Pashtuns, tired of the chauvanism of the Pashtun leadership as well as Pakistani meddling which comes as part of the package. This vision was and is the central value of the Abdullah camp. They see the Pashtuns as always setting up a racist regime, pitting against every other ethnic identity in Afghanistan’s mix of ethnic groups against their tribalist ideas. Having experienced the Taliban, a regime that wore its violent bigotry openly, they are committed to seeing that the Pashto never again dominate Afghanistan politically and only share in power with the other ethnic identities. It was this mix of ethnic identities which populated the ground forces organized by the CIA to retake Kabul from the Taliban. This difference is very likely to be the cause of the next round of violence that is likely to break out in Afghanistan. But the Pashtun have the full backing of Pakistan which sees the Pashtun as the door through which Pakistan will dominate Afghanistan. This is a very tense situation. Pakistan has backed the Taliban more or less openly since its birth in the early 1990’s. That the Ghani camp has the implicit backing of Pakistan rankles the other ethnic groups of Afghanistan as Pakistan also controls Mullah Omar who is the embodiment of evil to them. many Afghans are also concerned with what they see as an American shift from backing the Norther Alliance to retake Kabul to a position favoring Pakistan and its Pashtun proxies. Both Dr. Abdullah and Mr. Ghani have powerful allies who can command loyal militias to fight on each other’s behalf. Ghani has Abdul Rashid Dostum, whose militia is comprised of ethnic Uzbeks and has often switched sides, deftly trying to accomplish border bending goals of his own. Dostum’s vision is also somewhat of a tribal scenario in which his Uzbek tribe breaks away from Afghanistan and begins a new country on its own or simply joins with neighboring Uzbekistan to the north. His real power on the ground is waning however and he may well be a use-it-or-lose-it option for Ghani making the present impasse even more unstable. Dr. Abdullah can rely on a northern governor, Atta Mohammed Noor, who commands an increasingly powerful militia network which has been steadily rolling back Dostum’s power over the last decade. Many of the current leadership allied with Abdullah, Noor, Yunis Kanooni, Ismael Khan, the late Marshall Fahim, Amrullah Saleh and many more were former commanders or political officers under or allied to Massoud. Having endured one rigged election which installed Hamid Karzai and his Pashtun regime over Dr. Abdullah, they are not prepared to do so again. It’s not at all clear that Dr. Abdullah can restrain them again. Dr. Abdullah, among other things, is a medical doctor who treated many of Afghanistan’s war victims in the field and in refugee camps in Pakistan. The memory of the horrors he has seen almost certainly compel him to agree to a power sharing deal suggested by Secretary Kerry. But Mr. Ghani, it seems, will not accept any power sharing deal and, as Governor Noor is proclaiming below, neither will the alliance of Afghan ethnic groups, sometimes called the Northern Alliance. This puts remaining American and NATO troops in a very precarious place as no one is sure which side they will be on when the shooting begins. Because Mr. Ghani has rejected power sharing, violence will likely break out at any time at any time.
Posted on: Thu, 14 Aug 2014 15:41:12 +0000
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