U.S. Hand Seen in Afghan Election
Some candidates say the embassy pressured them not to
run against
President Karzai. American officials deny the accusations.
By Paul Watson
Times Staff Writer
September 23, 2004
KABUL, Afghanistan — Mohammed Mohaqiq says he was getting ready to make
his run for the Afghan presidency when U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad
dropped by his campaign office and proposed a deal.
"He told me to drop out of the elections, but not in a way to put
pressure," Mohaqiq said. "It was like a request."
After the hourlong meeting last month, the ethnic Hazara warlord said
in an interview Tuesday, he wasn't satisfied with the rewards offered
for quitting, which he did not detail. Mohaqiq was still determined to
run for president — though, he said, the U.S. ambassador wouldn't give
up trying to elbow him out of the race.
"He left, and then
called my most loyal men, and the most educated people in my party or
campaign, to the presidential palace and told them to make me —or request me — to resign the nomination. And he told my men
to ask me what I need in return."
Mohaqiq, who is running in the Oct. 9 election, is one of several
candidates who maintain that the U.S. ambassador and his aides are
pushing behind the scenes to ensure a convincing victory by the
pro-American incumbent, President Hamid Karzai. The Americans deny
doing so.
"It is not only me," Mohaqiq said. "They have been
doing the same thing with all candidates. That is why all people think
that not only Khalilzad is like this, but the whole U.S. government is
the same. They all want Karzai — and this election is just a show."
The charges were repeated by several other candidates and their senior
campaign staff in interviews here. They reflected anger over what many
Afghans see as foreign interference that could undermine the shaky
foundations of a democracy the U.S. promised to build.
"This
doesn't suit the representative of a nation that has helped us in the
past," said Sayed Mustafa Sadat Ophyani, campaign manager for Younis
Qanooni, Karzai's leading rival. "You have seen Afghanistan suffering
for 25 years, from the Russians, then the Taliban. Why is the U.S.
government now looking to make people of Afghanistan accept whatever
the U.S. government says?"
Qanooni said he and 13 other
presidential candidates planned to meet today in Kabul, the capital, to
air complaints about Khalilzad's interference.
In a statement released this week, Khalilzad denied the allegations
that he and his staff were meddling in the election.
"U.S. Embassy officials regularly keep in touch with all presidential
candidates, and we listen to their ideas and proposals," he said in an
e-mailed response from New York, where he was attending the opening of
the U.N. General Assembly.
"Officials from the U.S. mission
support the elections process, not individuals," the statement added.
"No U.S. official can or will endorse or campaign on behalf of any
individual presidential candidate."
Khalilzad also said he "has
never asked a candidate to withdraw — this is a decision for each
candidate to make for him or herself."
Since coming to power
after the American-led invasion that overthrew the Taliban in 2001, the
interim Afghan government largely has been beholden to the United
States for its survival. The U.S. has deployed about 18,000 troops and
is spending about $1 billion a year on reconstruction in the Central
Asian nation. Karzai depends on the Americans for his safety: DynCorp,
a Virginia-based firm, has provided his bodyguards since November 2002
under a contract with the State Department.
Khalilzad has been
nicknamed "the Viceroy" because the influence he wields over the Afghan
government reminds some Afghans of the excesses of British colonialism.
Some of Karzai's rivals think that the ambassador has taken on a new
role: presidential campaign manager.
This is not the first time
Khalilzad has been accused of meddling in Afghan politics. Delegates to
gatherings that named Karzai interim president in 2002 and ratified
Afghanistan's new Constitution last December also accused the
ambassador of interfering, even of paying delegates for their support.
Khalilzad denies the claims.
The latest allegations are perhaps
more serious because the Bush administration is portraying
Afghanistan's presidential election as a democratic victory for the
country's people, who suffered under more than two decades of strife.
President Bush has touted bringing Afghan democracy as a foreign policy
success in his election campaign.
There are 18 candidates in
the Afghan election. Such a divided field is expected to favor Karzai,
whom Afghans hear and see frequently on state-controlled radio and
television.
The president, who is usually holed up in his
heavily fortified palace because of threats to his life, has made only
one campaign trip outside Kabul since the election campaign began Sept.
7. That trip last Thursday was aborted when a rocket missed the U.S.
military helicopter in which he was traveling.
Mohaqiq
commands strong loyalty among Hazaras and, if he chooses to step aside
and endorse Karzai, probably could deliver a large bloc of votes.
Mohaqiq said Tuesday that he might still do so — for the right deal.
Mohaqiq said his senior aides met the U.S. ambassador at the
presidential palace, without Karzai. The aides agreed try again to
persuade their candidate to drop out of the race and throw his support
behind the incumbent, Mohaqiq said.
The pressure was so intense that he agreed to quit under certain
conditions, he added.
Mohaqiq said his demands, in the event of Karzai's victory, would be
four Cabinet posts for his party, four governorships in the mainly
Hazara provinces of central Afghanistan and a new road from Kabul into
the region, informally known as Hazarajat.
Mohaqiq said
Khalilzad told him that the new road would not be a problem, but that
his party would have to settle for two ministerial posts, two deputy
spots in other ministries and one governorship.
"I was very
interested in taking part in the elections, but since many of my men
were asking me to accept Khalilzad's ideas — and he was also telling me
to do so — I didn't have much choice, and I was ready to agree,"
Mohaqiq said.
"But a good thing happened, and Karzai didn't agree with those terms,"
he added. "I don't know why."
Several leaders of the Northern Alliance, whose troops ousted the
Taliban regime in late 2001 with the help of U.S. air power, met in
Kabul on Friday to discuss what they said was Khalilzad's electoral
arm-twisting, said Mohammed Qasem Mohseni, one of presidential
candidate Abdul Latif Pedram's two running mates.
Mohseni said
the summit participants included Foreign Minister Abdullah, who goes by
one name; former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who like Abdullah is a
member of the Tajik minority; and Ustad Abdul Rasul Sayyaf who, like
Karzai, is a Pushtun, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group.
"In
this meeting, Ustad Sayyaf said that we have been under pressure for 25
days by the U.S. government, by Khalilzad, to make Younis Qanooni
resign from the post of candidate for the presidency," Mohseni said.
Qanooni is not expected to win the race. However, he could prevent
Karzai from gaining more than 50% of the votes, forcing a runoff and
prolonging a campaign that already has drawn violent attacks by Taliban
and other insurgents.
Qanooni's campaign aides said Khalilzad
was trying to persuade the candidate to accept defeat before any
ballots were counted and to agree to join Karzai in a coalition
government after the vote.
"Our hearts have been broken because
we thought we could have beaten Mr. Karzai if this had been a true
election," Ophyani said. "But it is not. Mr. Khalilzad is putting a lot
of pressure on us and does not allow us to fight a good election
campaign."
Some say Khalilzad is working to draw Rabbani, the
former president, to Karzai's side, which would deepen the split in
Qanooni's Northern Alliance.
Qanooni supporters say that
Rabbani, whose son-in-law is one of Karzai's running mates, visited
Badakhshan province last month with Khalilzad and urged local militia
commanders to back the incumbent. The former president insists that the
discussions in his home province dealt only with reconstruction.
"I told Mr. Khalilzad, 'The people of Badakhshan are waiting for you,
and they are always asking, what is the U.S. government doing?' "
Rabbani said. "I told him to go there and see the people, and he
promised to construct a road and a dam for them."
There is
nothing wrong with the U.S. ambassador working closely with
Afghanistan's president as long as he only offers advice and doesn't
make decisions, Rabbani added.
"I believe that Mr. Karzai and
Khalilzad are linked very closely with each other now and they were in
the past too," Rabbani said. "And when they have links, they probably
have political links or any other kind of links."
