Amid security concerns, foes of Karzai see electoral opening

Now, Kabul is also blanketed in signs featuring the faces of presidential candidates hoping to be elected on Aug. 20. In one, President Hamid Karzai, who has ruled since the Taliban were toppled in 2001, stands with outstretched arms next to a balanced scale of justice, his campaign logo.

But this sign, too, seems out of step with reality. Eight years after Karzai assumed power amid high hopes for a new Afghanistan, kidnapping is a cottage industry, bribery is routine, and a stalemated guerrilla war between international forces and insurgents grinds on, killing hundreds in the cross fire.

This has made fertile ground for a field of new political opponents.

At least 41 candidates are jockeying to be head of state, even as an advancing insurgency shrinks the portion of the country the winner will control.

And now, in the eyes of the United States, the faltering condition of Karzai’s government is becoming a US national security issue.

Last week, in his last trip to Kabul, outgoing NATO supreme allied commander John Craddock called good governance “the key factor’’ for defeating the insurgency.

“If people don’t believe that government is a positive factor in their life, then this will be very difficult, regardless of how good we are at delivering security,’’ Craddock said.

While the Bush administration steadfastly backed Karzai, President Obama has gone out of his way to make it clear that the United States is not supporting any particular candidate, even as the United States prepares to send 22,000 additional US troops to the country.

Over the weekend, US ambassador Karl Eikenberry, a former general, attended press conferences with two leading presidential candidates - former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah and former finance minister Ashraf Ghani. Yesterday, he did the same for Mirwais Yasini, a member of Parliament who is considered the third viable challenger. At each event, Eikenberry explained that he was trying to get to know the potential future leader of Afghanistan, and seemed to scold Karzai between the lines.

“We would like to know what their views are on poor governance, because we know that poor governance leads to insecurity,’’ Eikenberry said at the event with Abdullah.

“This is a chance for the people of Afghanistan to give the government a report card for its performance over the last five years.’’

A recent International Republican Institute poll of 3,200 Afghans showed that 69 percent of Afghans still have a favorable opinion of Karzai, compared with 25 percent who had an unfavorable one. Thirty-one percent said they would vote for him, while his closest competitor, Abdullah, garnered 7 percent.

But nearly half of all respondents said they or their relatives have paid bribes to local officials for services and licenses. Only 30 percent of respondents felt the country was moving in the right direction, compared with 79 percent in 2004.

“Things are going very wrong,’’ said Yasini, in a recent interview in his home, where posters bearing his face plastered the front gate. Yasini, 46, plans to build his campaign on a grass-roots strategy that his cousin, Abdul Yasini, learned while campaigning for Obama in California.

Across town, Abdullah kicked off his campaign with a speech at a wedding hall packed with Tajiks, Afghanistan’s second-largest ethnic group.

As the audience cheered him on with chants of “God is great’’ and shouted poetry praising him, Abdullah promised everything from army posts for former warlords, to free land for carpet weavers, to negotiating a peace deal with the Taliban. But he got his biggest applause when he talked about the eventual withdrawal of foreign troops.

“For eight years, this government was not able to have their own Afghan forces; still they need foreign forces in the country,’’ he said. “I will try to have Afghan forces, so that in a few coming years, there won’t be a need for foreign troops.’’

An Abdullah supporter, Habiba Amin, a school headmistress who brought her students to his speech, said she supported Karzai in 2004.

“I did a lot of campaigning’’ for Karzai, she said. “We thought he would be a person, alongside foreign troops, to help Afghanistan. But that was just on paper. Nothing has taken place.’’

Still, Karzai’s challengers face an uphill battle against an incumbent who has a genius for neutralizing rivals by giving them plum political posts. Karzai’s campaign headquarters, on the outskirts of Kabul, was a hive of activity, as servants fed watermelon to nearly 100 people seated outside in a tent. Most wore turbans traditional to the Pashtun, Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group.

Karzai’s support is flagging in the Pashtun heartland, in part because of anger over the insurgency that has gripped much of the south and east. Analysts say that if Karzai fails to win 50 percent of the vote in the first round, another candidate might defeat him. Some view Ashraf Ghani, a Pashtun and former World Bank official, as a potential dark horse.

As finance minister, Ghani was at loggerheads with the US government, fighting to get more aid funneled through Afghan institutions rather than expensive US contractors. When the US government hired defense contractor BearingPoint to supply him with an adviser to rein him in, the first task Ghani asked the young American to do was draw up a memo kicking BearingPoint out of the country.

But now Americans seem eager for any leader capable of managing the chaos. Afghans, meanwhile, are skeptical that any of the candidates can improve life here.

“When Karzai came, all the people were optimistic about Afghanistan, but now I don’t think even 10 percent are optimistic,’’ said Haji Hamid, 54, whose family has owned Chelsea Supermarket in downtown Kabul since 1929.

Hamid, who has lived through 15 presidents, two foreign invasions, and a civil war, said he is still struggling to survive. Two months ago, he was kidnapped and held for 20 days while his family gathered ransom. The fact that the kidnappers came in broad daylight as the police looked on makes Hamid suspicious of the government.

Still, he said, “I have to vote for Karzai, even though he doesn’t have a good government and I was kidnapped.’’

“It’s our responsibility to vote,’’ he added. “And we know Karzai is going to win because he now has a place among the people.’’