AFGHANISTAN - Old Faces Re-appear.

On the face of it, the elections marked a major step forward for Afghanistan as they brought to an end the "Bonn process" instituted to fill the political vacuum left by the Taliban, and they are giving the country a democratically elected parliament. But they have also brought in former warlords who were high on the US blacklist four years ago.

About 12.5m people were registered to vote for about 5,800 candidates who either stood for the 249-seat People's Council (Wolesi Jirga) or for a seat on one of the 34 provincial councils. But people on Sept. 18 were all too concerned that the same figures who had alternately savaged and abused the country over the past decades will be back in power. About 25% of the candidates were members of the Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, while of the rest, many were former jihadis or former communists. Among these combined ranks were a number of Taliban leaders who had been drawn into the political process, although their true colours remained suspect.

The only difference was that all these candidates were nominally under the US flag and acknowledged Karzai's government. Hekmatyar, a legendary mujahid who fought against the occupying Soviets in the 1980s and became PM in 1993 at the height of a bloody civil war after the withdrawal of the Soviets and the collapse of the communist government in Kabul, remains active in the Taliban-led insurgency. Khalid Farooqi and Himayun Jarir (a son-in-law of Hekmatyar) were two notable recent "turncoats" of the HIA who contested the polls.

Influential figures such as Yunus Qanooni (a Tajik and a former education minister), Prof. Abdul Rab Rasool Sayyaf (a Wahhabi Pashtun warlord) and Burhanuddin Rabbani (a former Afghan president), as well as prominent jihadis and ex-communists had the influence (contacts in local communities & the insurgency) and resources (money, arms) to run successful campaigns. Professionals, intellectuals and ordinary citizens had none of those vital tools, and many candidates did not even have the wherewithal to stage rallies.

On the eve of the polls Dr. Khalilullah Jamili, who teaches political philosophy and who is a director of the Cultural Council at Kabul University, told Asia Times Online: "It [change] will certainly be negative on all counts. I bet that things will come back to square one within six months of the general elections. I spent several years in Germany in the field of education and returned to my country in the hope that I would share my services in the process of rebuilding. Having spent several months here, I am facing a hopeless situation. The current parliamentary elections were supposed to bring professionals, intellectuals and real politicians into the parliament so that they could legislate for the good in the country. However, what we perceive is the return of the same people who brought destruction to this country".

Jamili added: "Where would we find the right people in Afghanistan? Twenty-five years of civil war and destruction have produced a mess. Now, with the same leaders coming back, my political acumen suggests another civil war after six months. Contradictions will emerge and people will point fingers negatively on the people they elected. Guns will remain the last answer for every problem, just like it has in the past. As the people of Kabul say, 'Do not expect anything good'".

Ahmed Nadri, chairman of the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan, which sent 5,000 observers to the polls, was on Sept. 20 quoted by Asia Times Online as saying: "Apart from security concerns, there were a few other factors, including certain violations by the candidates, which disturbed the overall process...". US and Afghan security officials said clashes with Taliban fighters on election day left three militants and two policemen dead in the eastern Khost province. In a separate incident, the French Defence Ministry said a French special forces soldier was killed on Sept. 17 in the south. In Kabul, two rockets landed within the compound of the UN Operations Centre in Afghanistan shortly after polling stations opened. One rocket exploded and caused a fire at a warehouse and the other did not go off.

Security at the 6,200 polling centres was provided by about 30,000 troops, including 20,000 from a US-led force and 10,000 NATO-led peacekeepers. More than 1,000 people died in the months leading up to the election.

Voting started at 6.30 in the morning in mosques and in schools, but in Kabul the streets were deserted, although Kabulis are early starters. The only large gathering was at the residence of former minister of the interior and powerful commander of the defunct Northern Alliance, Dr Younus Qanooni. A Tajik, Qanooni leads the National Understanding Front. He stood against Karzai in the October presidential elections and collected the second largest number of votes.

The Afghan administration worked hard to motivate people. Power goes off in Kabul after dawn and supplies are only restored at dusk. But on Sept. 18 electricity was provided all day so people could switch on their TV sets and be motivated by the national channels to go out and vote.

Candidates Play Down Taliban Past: The New York Times on Sept. 17 pointed to Maulvi Qalamuddin, who had chosen the clock for his campaign for parliament. Once, as the head of the Taliban's Department for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue, Qalamuddin, a religious man by profession, was the notorious face of Taliban-era moral policing.

The NYT recalled: "It was his men who cruised through town ordering the floggings of women who did not cover themselves from head to toe, or the floggings of men who dared shave their beards. Now, in his quest to represent his home province of Logar in the [Sept. 18] parliamentary elections, Qalamuddin's appeals to voters contain hardly a word about the Taliban. He opts instead to rewind a few years to an earlier vocation, as a...[Muslim] warrior fighting to oust the Soviet invaders from his country. Asked about his Taliban links, he prefers to describe himself as a member of one of several anti-Soviet factions that joined the old regime. This is how he appealed to a gathering of men under a tent the other day: 'You who now have white beards, you were once young, good jihadis', Qalamuddin, a cleric by vocation, said. 'When you are voting for someone, look at him - judge his background, ask where was he during the jihad, was a good man or a bad man'".

Afghan voters on Sept. 18 asked some of those questions of the handful of former Taliban ministers and military commanders who had thrown their turbans into the electoral ring, even as their former brothers-in-arms carried on a bruising insurgency against the US-backed government of Karzai. They were a storied bunch, and they were mostly from the south.

Two prominent Taliban commanders ran for parliament: Rais Baghrani, from Helmand Province, just west of Kabul, and Abdul Salaam Rocketi, named for his rocket-firing skills, from Zabul, to the east. Ahmed Mutawakil, until late 2001 Taliban foreign minister, ran from this province.

Haji Abdul Samat Khaksar, the Taliban's onetime intelligence minister demoted to deputy interior minister, on Sept. 18 was vying to represent Kandahar in parliament. Khaksar's campaign manifesto included ridding the country of narcotics and respecting human rights. His campaign symbol looked like a pasta bowl. He said his Taliban credentials were entirely irrelevant to his campaign. He was quoted by The NYT on Sept. 17 as saying: "My people are important to me, to represent them in parliament. Now the name of the Taliban or any other party is not important. We should not divide our country by political parties, languages, or ethnic groups". Still, he said, Taliban fighters had been threatening him on the phone. What infuriated him even more was the refusal of election officials to give him the two AK-47s he had requested for his security. By law, no one was allowed to campaign with arms. In practice, Khaksar groused, many did, adding: "The government is helping the candidates they want for parliament, and they're not helping me. Are we not human?"

Qalamuddin, too, was not eager to be reminded of his Taliban past. In an interview at his village home published on Sept. 17 by The NYT, he "took pains to distance himself" from what he called "the excesses of young Taliban fighters in enforcing the vice and virtue laws of the regime". He had only wanted to persuade people to take the correct moral path of Islam, he said. He did not wish to inflict harsh punishment. He said: "I was not the one putting people in prison".

The NYT said it was "a good thing" that Qalamuddin's campaign symbol was "a necessity for illiterate voters who cannot read a candidate's name on a ballot, turned out not to be a television or a kite". During his tenure, the paper said, the vice and virtue agency ordered TV sets to be smashed and prohibited kite-flying, on grounds they were un-Islamic.

At the time, The NYT added, Qalamuddin had praised a 1996 stoning of two adulterers as among the most effective measures. In an interview published in August 1997 by The NYT, he had said: "Just two people [were executed], that's all, and we ended adultery in Kandahar forever. Even 100,000 police could not have the effect...we achieved with one punishment of this kind". The NYT said he stressed that some of the most infamous Taliban decrees, including stoning and destruction of the historic Buddha statues at Bamiyan, were judgments issued by the courts, not him.

Qalamuddin was arrested by security forces in April 2003, but was released after intervention from his tribe. On Sept. 17, he urged Taliban gunmen to join the government, saying: "I can go to Parliament, solve my people's problems...and stop the fighting in this country".

Yunus Qanooni Profile: The president's chief rival in the October 2004 elections and a candidate in the Sept. 18 parliamentary polls, Dr. Qanooni is a former education and interior minister under Karzai. He has substantial support within the Panjsher Valley in the north. Like slain Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Masoud, Qanooni is a Tajik Panjshiri. He fought beside Masoud against both the Soviets and the Taliban. He served as Masoud's personal spokesman, as well as one of his senior advisers. When Masoud was assassinated by al-Qaeda operatives days before 9/11, Qanooni effectively took control of the militias Masoud had commanded. In the past four years he has smartly turned the former armed bands into effective political activists, and their presence was highly visible across Kabul on Sept. 18.

Qanooni is not particularly popular with the US-led forces in Afghanistan as he now opposes Karzai. But he has positioned himself as an indispensable feature of Afghan politics, whether he holds office or not. In an interview with Asia Times Online published on Sept. 22, Qanooni spoke on the future of the mujahideen in the new parliamentary politics. He said: "The mujahideen's importance cannot be down-played. They were important and they will remain important. Nobody can reject them. That's why they are contesting the polls and they will form a dominant presence in the upcoming parliament".

On whether the West will tolerate the mujahideen's heavy mandate in parliament and their role in decision-making, he said: "The West does not have a choice. They have to respect public opinion. The West is only concerned about peace and stability in Afghanistan. Only the mujahideen can ensure that". On whether the future of Afghanistan is secular or Islamic, he said: "Afghanistan is a Muslim country, with a 99% Muslim population. There is no place for secularism in Afghanistan. Our official religion is Islam and no system will be acceptable other than Islam. However, let me make clear here that the Taliban's concepts of Islam are not acceptable. Islam is a progressive and tolerant religion. Moderate and tolerant Islam is the future of Afghanistan and the international community should not be concerned on that because an Islamic welfare state of Afghanistan would not pose any threat to anybody, nor have any agenda against anybody.

Asked who will run the system as people in Kabul seem to be concerned about the dearth of human resources in Afghanistan, he replied: "I do not agree with this notion. We have qualified Afghans all over the world who can serve their nation and country. The same people also came to Afghanistan after the collapse of the Taliban, but due to the wrong handling of the incumbent Afghan government, they went back. At the same time, I would also like to mention that the government wrongly projects the literacy rate in the country. It is more than it projects. If the future government keeps upright policies, qualified people will return and definitely serve Afghanistan".

Asked if people like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar have any chance as the Karzai government has announced a general amnesty for all Taliban, Qanooni said: "I disagree with the Karzai government's dialogue policy with the Taliban. As a result of this wrong policy, violence and terrorism is encouraged in Afghanistan. I do not see any chance that the government will achieve any success with this policy. The Taliban have only exploited this chance and the number of their attacks has intensified. I tell you, the Taliban have a rigid ideology and they will not compromise on that until their ideology gets recognition in the government, and they will not give up their fight against the government. As far as ordinary Taliban are concerned, we have no problem with them, but there should not be any compromise with their leadership. As far as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is concerned, I do not see any chance of an amnesty for him as his policies are in contrast with the present government and the coalition forces".

Asked whether Hekmatyar's HIA will call the shots in the parliament as 25% of the candidates came from this party, Qanooni said: "I disagree that the HIA will get any significant representation in parliament. Nonetheless, the real authority is public opinion. It's up to them whom they elect and whom they do not". On whether or not warlordism is controllable, Qanooni said: "This problem has not really been identified - who is a warlord and who is not? There is no absolute definition when one talks about warlordism in Afghanistan. When it suits, they are given government offices and they are not blamed as warlords, but when political differences emerge, they are blamed for warlordism. The same with terrorism in southern and southeastern Afghanistan. This does not mean that the Taliban are strong in those areas, it means that the government strategy is weak. There is a strong presence of the national army, police and coalition forces, and despite that, if violence is not controlled, it means that the government's strategy is flawed".

On the role of Pakistan in the insurgency, Qanooni said: "Pakistan supports the Taliban. However, it is neither in the national interest of Pakistan nor of Afghanistan. Both countries should take care of each other's interests... The important thing is that the Taliban are working against the interests of Afghanistan and they are getting support from Pakistan". To the charge that Afghanistan has become a narco-state, he said: "The narco trade is an international problem. A full syndicate is involved in this trade. Therefore, a coherent joint international strategy is required. There should be a security belt all around Afghanistan on all borders of Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Iran and Tajikistan. Zones should be earmarked where Interpol's role should be ensured. The Afghan government is responsible for not taking this problem seriously. It has not devised any effective policy to combat this crime. When I was minister of interior for six months, I devised a policy for a security belt all around the borders so that narco trafficking could be stopped. Ironically, later on that policy was not implemented.