The almost-candidate

KABUL — Afghanistan’s election fever has started in earnest. With the cutoff for announcing candidacy a mere three weeks away, hopefuls are sending up trial balloons and assessing their chances, not only with their potential constituencies, but with the international media.

On Friday, April 3, the first of the possible presidential frontrunners emerged, to give broad hints and a bit of lunch to a press corps hungry for more than lamb and rice.

“I cannot hide it any more,” said Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan’s former foreign minister, when asked if he would be on the ballot. “It is going that way.”

His campaign slogan?

“I do not want to borrow anyone else’s message,” he said with a smile. “But I would have to say ‘Change.’”

Like any practiced politician, Abdullah was long on generalities, short on specifics. Unsurprisingly, he stands for honesty and transparency, rule of law, closer ties between the government and the people, and is a staunch foe of Afghanistan’s booming heroin industry.

However, he is not so clear on just how he differs from his main rival, President Hamid Karzai. The focus is more on execution than vision.

Karzai "does not have any message that things will get better,” he said, speaking to a small group of international journalists at his home in the Panjshir Valley, which once served as a headquarters for the anti-Soviet group of fighters known as the Northern Alliance. “The trend has been sliding down.”

A suave, English-speaking professional with a long and complex history in Afghanistan, Abdullah will most likely be the consensus candidate of the National United Front, a coalition of disparate political groups that formed two years ago with only one common goal: their uncompromising opposition to the Afghan president.

It has not been easy. Speaker of parliament Younus Qanuni and First Vice President Ahmad Zia Massoud were also in the running, but seem to have been edged out by the fact that, as ethnic Tajiks, they could never appeal to the country’s Pashtuns, who make up close to half of the electorate.

Abdullah is a controversial figure for many Afghans. Although he lays claim to Pashtun ethnicity on his father’s side, he was born in Panjshir province, close to Kabul, and is closely identified with the Northern Alliance.

This loose affiliation of resistance fighters battled the Soviets in the 1980s and the Taliban in the 1990s, along the way engaging in an internecine struggle that decimated much of the capital and gave rise to some of the worst violence Afghanistan has seen in its long, troubled history.

Abdullah, who like many Afghans has but one name, is a doctor of ophthalmology. He doubled his moniker once he became a diplomat, apparently tiring of being asked for his surname, and is now known as Dr. Abdullah Abdullah.

A spokesman for the Northern Alliance and a close associate of assassinated national hero Ahmad Shah Massoud, Abdullah became foreign minister when Karzai was installed as interim president in 2001. He served in that post for five years, losing out to Rangin Dadfur Spanta in a cabinet reshuffle in 2006.

If Abdullah does triumph in the Aug. 20 ballot, negotiations with the Taliban are likely to be put on the back burner. He was caustic in his critique of Karzai’s attempt to engage the insurgency, and left little doubt that he was not on the same track.

“We are not going to win by knocking on Mullah Omar’s door,” he said, a clear reference to Karzai’s repeated statements that he was ready to meet the Taliban leader. “We should have no illusions that the hard core, highly ideological people will be convinced to give up.”

Abdullah repeatedly grouped Mullah Omar with Al Qaeda, saying that they shared a common global agenda: to topple infidel governments and create a strict Islamic state.

He did, however, reiterate the now common refrain that there was no military solution to the current stalemate, leaving reporters in something of a muddle as to how he would lead the country forward.

“The main goal now is to bridge the gap between the government and the people,” he said. “We cannot let the Taliban recruit from among the people.”

With elections now less than five months away, most Afghans are still undecided about their choice. There seems to be a general dissatisfaction with Karzai’s lackluster performance over the past seven years, and many would like to see a change. But no clear favorite has yet emerged.

The United States, which plays a dominant role in Afghanistan, has been careful of late not to indicate its preference. A few weeks ago it abruptly halted its increasingly virulent anti-Karzai rhetoric and began to issue bland statements that the United States supports free and fair elections, a level playing field, and will neither support nor oppose any candidate.

This is a wise choice, according to Abdullah. Many Afghans are expecting a repeat of the 2004 elections, when Karzai was the darling of Washington, and won an easy first-round victory in a field of 18.

“It was obvious in 2004 that the United States was behind one candidate,” Abdullah said. “But he will now be judged against what has been done.”

It is not just Karzai who will face the people’s verdict in August. Much of the anger directed at the incumbent spills over onto the international community, with issues such as civilian casualties and foreign occupation very much at the fore.

If elected, Abdullah will be unlikely to demand a hasty departure of the foreign troops that are now holding the country together. But he does sound a cautious note of independence.

“We are Afghans,” he smiled. “Let us do things our own way.”

Read more about Afghanistan’s upcoming elections:

Karzai’s back …

Afghanistan’s presidential contenders

Crisis looms over Afghan election