Karzai seeks to move elections forward

The US presidential transition has not been easy for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has seen his status in Washington downgraded from untouchable golden boy to semi-legitimate leader of a narco-state. While Bush used to hold weekly video conferences with the dashing Pashtun, then-Senator Joe Biden famously walked out in the middle of a dinner with Karzai after the Afghan leader had stated that there was no corruption in his administration. Now the NYT and other sources are reporting that Karzai has decreed that the upcoming presidential elections, which had been scheduled for August, will be moved forward to April or May.

While this appears, in one sense, to be an attempt to avert a constitutional crisis stemming from the fact that Karzai is required by law to step down when his term ends on May 21, many commentators suspect darker motives. These include the possibilities that Karzai (1) wants to use US and NATO logistics and support for his campaign, as he did last time, and (2) wants to take his opponents by surprise by holding the election before they are prepared to mount an effective challenge:

"Snap elections might favor Mr. Karzai, as his opponents would probably be unprepared for such a short campaign. The earlier elections also would keep him from having to run a campaign while under a cloud of accusations that he had overstayed his term and was no longer a legitimate president."

Karzai's opponents, by the way, include former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani (a long-time power broker), recently-former Finance Minister Anwar ul-Haq Ahadi (slick but maybe competent), and First Vice President Ahmad Zia Massood (brother of the assasinated leader of the Northern Alliance and "Lion of the Panjsher," Ahmad Shah Massood).

You may remember from a previous post that BU anthropologist Thomas Barfield predicted that Karzai, whose popularity hovers around 20%, might try to steal this election. Stay tuned for more devilry!

Back from Algeria

Hey all (er...that's all of you who read this blog, which I think at this point is Boris), I'm back from almost two months in Algeria. I decided not to post anything while I was there, not because I was specifically advised not to, but because I wanted to avoid any possibility of causing problems for my hosts and the people I was working with. As I mentioned in the previous post, this threw something of a wrench into my plans to launch this blog on Inauguration Day, although you can rest assured that I watched the whole thing from my hotel room on the BBC. Anyway, I had a good time, did some technical work which is not hugely relevant to this blog, rocked the cash bar, and am raring to go with some new posts about that rascally Hamid Karzai. So thanks for bearing with me (Boris) and expect more content in the next few days.