{"id":2300,"date":"2018-11-02T00:22:42","date_gmt":"2018-11-02T00:22:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/?p=2300"},"modified":"2018-11-02T00:22:42","modified_gmt":"2018-11-02T00:22:42","slug":"the-taliban-has-vowed-to-disrupt-the-afghan-elections-candidates-are-out-in-force-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/2018\/11\/02\/the-taliban-has-vowed-to-disrupt-the-afghan-elections-candidates-are-out-in-force-anyway\/","title":{"rendered":"The Taliban has vowed to disrupt the Afghan elections. Candidates are out in force anyway."},"content":{"rendered":"

KABUL \u2014<\/span> Their faces loom from thousands of gigantic posters strung across the Afghan capital. Some express hopes for youth-driven change, diversity and modernization; others make not-too-subtle appeals for loyalty to an older generation of warlords and ethnic strongmen.<\/p>\n

More than\u00a02,500 candidates are running for 249 seats in Afghanistan\u2019s parliament in Saturday\u2019s elections, despite campaign violence that has killed 10 candidates and scores of supporters, Taliban threats to sabotage the polls, accusations of pre-election rigging, and public cynicism after years of legislative vote-buying and obstructionism.<\/p>\n

The risks are many, but so are the opportunities, whether to champion reforms or profit from wheeling and dealing. Many candidates have curtailed public events after half a dozen deadly attacks this month, and hundreds of polling places in high-risk districts will not open at all. The campaign, however, is in full swing.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease vote! Vote for a clean and modern parliament. Vote to get rid of the mafia. People who buy your vote will sell it later.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is the message that Abdul Manan Shiwaisharq, a rumpled academic in his 40s, was repeating into a microphone, between recorded snatches of an old political chant, as he drove through\u00a0Kabul one recent afternoon in an old Toyota Corolla sedan with a loudspeaker roped to the trunk.<\/p>\n

Shiwaisharq stopped at a traffic circle teeming with jobless laborers, got out and started chatting. One grizzled well digger challenged him, saying that all politicians were corrupt and indifferent to the plight of the poor.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we vote for you, you will forget your promises and never answer our calls,\u201d the well digger charged.<\/p>\n

\u201cI promise, I will answer your calls,\u201d the candidate vowed.<\/p>\n

A few miles away, inside a chandelier-lit wedding hall surrounded by armed guards, Baqir Mohaqiq, a clean-cut candidate of 26, described his agenda to promote government reform and social justice. But his speech to several hundred supporters also included a strident appeal to ethnic grievances. He vowed to \u201cdefend the rights of my people like a soldier\u201d and was greeted by shouts of \u201cGod is great!\u201d<\/p>\n

An employee of Afghanistan\u2019s Independent Election Commission shows the newspaper-size paper ballot that will be used in upcoming elections. (Wakil Kohsar\/AFP\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/div>\n

In the streets, hundreds of posters for Mohaqiq left no doubt about who and what he represented. His portrait was flanked by smaller likenesses of two war-hardened elders \u2014 his father, Mohammad, a powerful boss of Afghanistan\u2019s ethnic Hazara minority; and\u00a0Abdul Ali Mazari, a legendary Hazara fighter killed by the Taliban in 1995.<\/p>\n

Although election officials barred candidates with ties to armed militias or criminal groups, nearly two dozen sons and other relatives of ex-warlords are on ballots and billboards across the country. This effort to put fresh faces on a tarnished past\u00a0has aroused a mix of derision and fear among voters, and human rights activists said several campaign attacks were probably the work of rival politicians rather than insurgents.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are seeing attacks not only on the lives of candidates but on the life of Afghan democracy,\u201d said Mohammad Yousuf Rasheed, executive director of the independent Free and Fair Election Forum of Afghanistan. \u201cThis is not all the Taliban\u2019s doing. There are competing interests and clashes over seats. There are efforts to force candidates to withdraw. What will happen on election day if voters get directly targeted?\u201d<\/p>\n

Continue finish reading this article click\u00a0here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KABUL \u2014 Their faces loom from thousands of gigantic posters strung across the Afghan capital. Some express hopes for youth-driven change, diversity and modernization; others make not-too-subtle appeals for loyalty to an older generation of warlords and ethnic strongmen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[53,12],"class_list":["post-2300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-post","tag-afghanistan-elections","tag-taliban"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2300"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2301,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2300\/revisions\/2301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}