There is no doubt who the strongmen are backing in Afghanistan's presidential election on Thursday. One by one, the ethnic chieftains whose militia armies dominated the country during decades of war, have lined up to pledge their support for the incumbent, President Hamid Karzai. Polls show that should be enough to keep the veteran ruler in power for another five years – if not with a first-round victory this week, then in a run-off six weeks later. But many Afghans and foreign diplomats worry that backroom deals made to secure Karzai's re-election could restore old guerrilla bosses to positions of patronage and power and set back efforts to improve how the country is run. "Definitely, the next government of Karzai will include some violators of human rights, commanders and warlords," said Mohammad Qasim Akhgar, an Afghan writer and analyst. "Government positions, cabinet or provincial posts, will be distributed on the basis of the percentage of the votes they bring to Karzai. I think this is clear fact and a done deal." Karzai, who took power in an internationally brokered deal after the Taleban fell in 2001 and easily won the country's first democratic presidential election three years later, says his outreach to former guerrillas is not aimed at dividing power among fiefs, but at creating "national partnership". His talents as a conciliator are a main theme of his election campaign, and he wins regular cheers at his rallies with a vow to seek a peace deal with Taleban insurgents. Many of Karzai's latest ex-guerrilla allies are men the president had carefully managed to sideline in recent years. Most recently Karzai won a last-minute endorsement from Energy Minister Ismail Khan, a former guerrilla commander whom Karzai had summoned to Kabul years ago to remove from his powerful post as governor of the western province of Herat. In the north, Karzai has secured the backing of Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Uzbek guerrilla commander with a particularly brutal reputation, who won 10 percent of the vote in 2004. Karzai's two vice presidential running mates are former militia commanders, from the Tajik and Hazara groups. He has also won the backing of former guerrilla chiefs from his own Pashtun ethnic group, such as Gul Agha Sherzai, a powerful governor who had contemplated running against him. INFLUENCE GAINED IN WAR Afghanistan's ex-guerrilla chiefs acquired influence in the struggle against the decade-long Soviet occupation in the 1980s, when they fought with the backing of the West. They later fought each other after the demise of the Moscow backed-government in 1992, causing tens of thousands of deaths. After helping the United States remove the Taleban in 2001, many were given top positions in Karzai's government, which they held onto for years, fighting turf battles, growing conspicuously wealthy and building themselves marble palaces in Kabul. Under pressure from the international community, over the last couple of years Karzai has replaced some with technocrats and professionals The UN special envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, has raised the alarm that former warlords could return to replace those newly-appointed technocrats and Karzai's opponents have also taken up the charge. "The problem is that this government has turned into a contract among ethnic entrepreneurs," Ashraf Ghani, a former finance minister said during a campaign trip last week. "There are a number of people who in the name of being Pashtun or Hazara or Uzbek or other groups come and claim to speak for them. They don't speak for these people. They haven't done anything to change the lives of these people," he said. Daad Noorani, a veteran journalist, said it is simply a fact of life in Afghanistan that no one can hold power without the support of the former Mujahideen. "There will not be much change. The Mujahideen groups are another layer of power in Afghanistan and whoever has their support will win, and that person is Karzai." Guerrilla chiefs will pick allies as ministers or governors, and if Karzai tries to block them they could turn against him and foment more instability, said Mohammad Moin Marastyal, a former deputy minister under Karzai, now a member of parliament. "I do not see the prospect for good," he said.
