STREAMS OF fake snow were showered on Abdullah Abdullah during the last day of campaigning in the Afghanistan election.
President Hamid Karzai’s main rival had his path strewn with flowers and tinsel by an adoring tae-kwondo team on arrival in Gardez, a dusty Pashtun-belt town 100km south of the capital, Kabul.
Mr Abdullah, a former foreign minister, has turned the Afghan election into an unexpectedly close contest in the run-up to polling day on Thursday.
According to some predictions, Mr Karzai stands to win 40-45 per cent of the vote and Mr Abdullah 20-30 per cent. Ramazan Bashadorst, a populist anti-corruption campaigner with a following in the central highlands, is in third position with about 10 per cent.
A second-round vote between the top candidates has become a real possibility in the past month. An October run-off could see support split among an initial field of 40 candidates consolidating behind Mr Abdullah and lead to a heated leadership battle.
“The turning point was Herat province. That was when everyone knew that something was going on,” says one of Mr Abdullah’s aides. “There was a massive turnout. I would say tens of thousands. It was more than the big rally at Mazari Sharif.” Since then the sense of inevitability around a Karzai victory has ebbed away.
During the last days of campaigning, Mr Karzai cancelled a visit to Helmand, opting instead for a televised debate, which his chief rival declined.
More controversially, he invited the return of the Abdul Rashid Dostum, a warlord suspected of atrocities against the Taliban, back from exile in Turkey. The pro-Soviet fighter’s return was widely viewed as a last-minute effort by Mr Karzai to firm up one of a number of ethnic alliances and secure victory. The move was criticised by Washington.
Likewise, Mr Karzai has reached out to Mohammad Fahim, a former defence minister and Soviet-trained military commander, as a future vice-president. Mr Fahim brings with him Tajik votes. The bout of pre-election deals worries rivals who see the president stitching together a powerful, if unwieldy, alliance with prominent figures from Afghanistan’s divided past.
One senior diplomat in Kabul says even if Mr Karzai wins, the 50-year-old Mr Abdullah has impressed with a mature campaign and is an attractive future presidential prospect.
Mr Abdullah, a relaxed man careful in his appearance, has drawn crowds across the country. He has staged 20 rallies and brings a simple message. In Gardez, he told voters that it was not good enough for people not to have basic services after eight years of Mr Karzai’s rule. Flanked by gun-toting security men, he said Gardez – home to a large military base – deserved roads, a reliable electricity supply and a university.
He also said more people needed to be recruited into the national army and police to shoulder greater responsibility for the nation’s security. “We are eight years into the process and international troops in Afghanistan are increasing in number. That is a sign of our failure and the inefficiency of the government.”
A third electoral promise is to change Afghanistan’s constitution and introduce a parliamentary system with a prime minister and a president in an effort to balance power in an ethnically and religiously divided land.
Mr Abdullah’s aides say that a candidate with a Pashtun father and a Tajik mother can bridge the ethnic gulf between north and south.
But here lies Mr Abdullah’s weakness. He speaks Pashtun a little haltingly, and is conscious that he needs to build up his relationships with leaders in the south and east. Without these, his ambitions to national leadership are stunted.
Along the road between Kabul and Gardez lie homesteads protected by high mud-walled fortifications. Some have turrets and large gates embossed with Islamic designs. These timeless edifices speak of fearfulness and mistrust. Where a US convoy patrols in the day, at night the road is held by Taliban forces.
Mr Abdullah has momentum. But he has a hard road to travel to win Kabul’s presidential palace.
– (Copyright The Financial Times 2009)