Campaigning too dangerous for candidates in Kandahar
Many contestants must rely on posters, word of mouth
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – Candidates in Saturday’s parliamentary election in Afghanistan’s second-biggest city don’t hold rallies. They don’t even leave their homes or hotel rooms. In the face of Taliban assassinations, it’s just too dangerous for them to venture out.
The specter of violence and fraud hangs over the election in Kandahar, as it does elsewhere in Afghanistan. Many anticipate that the Taliban will use polling day for attacks and that the authorities will repeat the ballot-stuffing in last year’s presidential election.
“I haven’t been outside (my house) for the last 12 days,” said Khalid Pashtoon, an English-speaking Westernized candidate who spent years living in the U.S. and is a member of the outgoing parliament. “I don’t even know what’s going on outside.”
The U.S.-led coalition asserts that security in Kandahar province has improved, the result of a major operation launched earlier this year. However, it remains a perilous place.
Thursday, the Kandahar morgue released the bodies of three police officers who had been ambushed in nearby Arghandab district earlier in the week and the corpse of a civilian whom the Taliban had hanged over the weekend, also in Arghandab – his two companions are still missing.
In northern Balkh province, two employees of the Independent Election Commission were shot to death, the United Nations mission said. This brought to 14 the number of candidates, campaign staff and election workers who have been killed in the run-up to the polls.
“No one is holding any rallies,” Pashtoon said. “Some candidates don’t have a campaign office. Some are working from a hotel room. Some don’t even dare put up posters.” He said that on about eight occasions, Afghan intelligence agencies and foreign diplomats had passed on information about assassination plots over the election period.
About 50 contestants, vying across Kandahar province for its 11 open seats in the 249-seat lower house, can’t even venture out in the provincial capital. They rely instead on tribal ties and getting their message out via posters, TV and radio advertisements and, crucially, elders who advocate on their behalf in the countryside.