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Memo From Afghanistan

War and Unrest Provide for a Scarred Campaign Trail in Afghanistan

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Before Saturday’s presidential election, Afghan candidates campaigned under tight security amid worries of violence and voter fraud.CreditCredit...Bryan Denton for The New York Times

KABUL, Afghanistan — There is much about Afghanistan’s presidential campaigns that Americans would probably find familiar. Chartered jets carry candidates to corners of the country where they would ordinarily never set foot, political operatives try to spin skeptical reporters, and rich men hand over bundles of cash to curry favor with their next potential president.

But this is Afghanistan, where democracy must be conducted in wartime. Forget the discreet handguns favored by a typical Secret Service detail — the guards accompanying Afghan presidential candidates step onto planes with AK-47s as their personal items, and sometimes rocket-propelled grenades make it as carry-on baggage.

All that is perhaps fitting for a campaign that began with election officials asking presidential hopefuls to please leave their gunmen at home when they registered their candidacies. Given the Taliban’s threats to disrupt the election, however, security concerns have been no joke. Though the Taliban managed to strike a voter registration center and the election commission’s headquarters before the official campaign period ended Wednesday, the campaigns themselves have emerged largely unscathed.

Still, there are parts of Afghanistan, some within an hour or two of Kabul, where the Taliban are firmly in charge. No campaigns ventured to those rural districts, where even Afghan soldiers rarely leave their bases, and in many areas there will most likely be no voting come Saturday.

Kabul, meanwhile, has been subjected to repeated Taliban attacks, and Afghan officials fear there are more to come before Saturday.

On Wednesday, cracked streets normally snarled with traffic and broken sidewalks often choked by pedestrians were wide open. Shops were closed, markets empty. Many of Kabul’s residents apparently decided it was a good time to stay home.

Those who did venture out had to contend with myriad checkpoints manned by police officers (easy), soldiers (a bit tougher) and Afghan intelligence operatives (lots of questions).

“They stop you every few hundred meters; all these armed uniformed men on the streets and checkpoints give you the creeps,” said Mohammed Taqi, 32, who was walking with his wife and their young daughter. “Everyone wants to get home as soon as possible. Things do not look good.”

But beyond Kabul, in cities that have seen far less Taliban violence this election season, campaign rallies have lured tens of thousands to stadiums, contrasting sharply with the last presidential election in 2009, when smaller sites were favored because of security concerns.

This year, the stadium rallies have often proved to be the best entertainment on offer, breaking up the monotony in places where there are no movie theaters, few televisions and precious few parks.

That this is the first election in Afghan history with no obvious front-runner has helped further draw out the curious. With President Hamid Karzai, the sole elected leader Afghanistan has ever known, at the end of his second and final term, Afghans are getting their first taste of a wide-open campaign.

The country is also confronting serious issues, and many voters appeared eager to hear what the candidates planned to do to address the situation. American-led combat forces are leaving at the end of the year, taking home their advanced weaponry and high-spending ways and raising the prospect of an economic calamity and Taliban advances.

A paucity of credible polling makes it anyone’s guess which of the eight candidates will win. But in a country where most people are conservative and religious, each of the three presumed front-runners would probably be more at home at an embassy cocktail party than a village shura meeting.

Ashraf Ghani is a reedy technocrat with a doctoral degree from Columbia who has served as finance minister and as a senior adviser to Mr. Karzai. He is this election’s policy wonk, peppering his conversation with words like tranches and sequencing.

But, as in any country, displaying a common touch is essential, and Mr. Ghani, who is in his mid-60s, has showed up at rallies clad like a Pashtun chief in a heavy turban and thick robes that dwarf his slight frame.

His main rival for Pashtun hearts and minds is Zalmay Rassoul, who is in his early 70s, a nephrologist by training and most recently the foreign minister. Mr. Rassoul’s campaign staff members often describe him as understated, and he has shown some discomfort speaking to crowds at nearly every rally, from the moment he begins reading his written speech. Still, two of the candidates who bowed out of the race, including Mr. Karzai’s older brother Qayum, endorsed Mr. Rassoul’s campaign and offered their support.

Then there is Abdullah Abdullah, 53, whose base of support is mostly among ethnic Tajiks in northern Afghanistan. He is the most natural politician in the race, appearing at ease in front of crowds and always stylishly dressed in slim-cut coats and blazers.

Slide 1 of 9

The district headquarters in Charkh, a base for the Afghan National Army, police and government officials, will be one of the few polling stations in Logar Province.

Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
  • Slide 1 of 9

    The district headquarters in Charkh, a base for the Afghan National Army, police and government officials, will be one of the few polling stations in Logar Province.

    Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Should a photographer appear, Mr. Abdullah is ready with whatever pose fits the moment — thoughtful, dashing or determined. He is, after all, a man whose passport lists his occupation as “eminent personality.”

Northern Afghanistan, where security is somewhat better, is Mr. Abdullah’s sweet spot. Last week, his rally in the prosperous city of Mazar-i-Sharif appeared to at least be a contender for the biggest of the campaign, as he had predicted it would be. Many in the crowd were enthusiastic, of course. But there were still holdouts. When one speaker chastised the crowd for not enthusiastically chanting slogans, a man standing near the stage muttered, “That’s because you didn’t feed us.”

Hospitality counts with Afghans, and to be fed lunch is as close to a natural right as anything here.

Despite consistently large and determined turnouts at rallies around the country, there were also instances of arm-twisting to pad the candidates’ numbers.

One case was evident at a rally for Mr. Rassoul in Kandahar, the largest city in the Pashtun heartland of southern Afghanistan.

Hajji Malak Kakko, an old farmer with a weathered face and little time to waste, said the police had lined up 18 buses in his outlying district and told people to climb aboard. He dutifully complied, but his fields needed tending, and he started getting antsy to leave the rally the moment he arrived.

“I hope no one will notice that I am escaping,” he said.

And at some rallies for Mr. Ghani and Mr. Abdullah, talk among the crowd indicated that some had been paid to attend.

If there has been plenty of material in the Afghan campaign season for cynics to seize on, there has been at least as much to hearten optimists. Afghan and Western officials say they have put in place new measures like bar-coded ballots, trying to avoid a repeat of the fraud-filled vote in 2009. Voter registration and interest were undeniably high.

And women have played a larger role in the campaign than ever before. At rally after rally, thousands of people have turned out to hear Habiba Sarobi, a woman and the former governor of Bamian Province who is one of Mr. Rassoul’s two running mates.

“This is our time,” said Habiba Sultan, 22, a student who was attending a rally for the Rassoul campaign in the northern city of Pul-e-Khumri. “We are changing the mind-set of Afghanistan.”

Habib Zahori and Rod Nordland contributed reporting from Kabul, and Taimoor Shah from Kandahar, Afghanistan.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 9 of the New York edition with the headline: War and Unrest Provide for a Scarred Campaign Trail in Afghanistan. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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