Analysts say if Karzai does secure another term, it would be less to do with campaigning than deals struck with ethnic, religious and regional strongmen bringing legions of supporters.

Already on board are, from the Tajiks, notorious warlord and alleged human rights abuser Mohammed Qasim Fahim, Karzai's choice for first vice president. And from the Hazara minority there is warlord Karim Khalili, second vice president.

Others to have declared for him include feared Uzbek military commander Abdul Rashid Dostum, who returned to Afghanistan late Sunday from Turkey where he had been based for about a year.

It prompted the United States to express "serious concerns about the prospective role of Mr Dostum in today's Afghanistan and particularly during these historic elections."

Also with Karzai is the leader of the Ismaili sect, Sayed Mansoor Naderi, whose loyal following illustrates that the election is less about the issues and more about allegiances.

"As Sayed Mansoor is our leader and he selected Karzai, we will also vote for him," said Ismaili Abdul Shafiq, 32, in the northern province of Baghlan.

The pay-offs are unclear, with talk of promises of cabinet seats or provincial governorships.

"If you deal like this, it is not democracy," said Wadir Safi, lecturer in the political sciences and law faculty at Kabul University.

After security, perhaps the biggest challenge for the election is that the electorate is largely illiterate, poor and 80 per cent rural, he said.

"They don't understand the value of their ballot," he said, alleging some were selling their votes for 10 or 20 dollars each.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=851066

TALIBAN militants launched three fresh strikes on the capital of Afghanistan yesterday, including a suicide car bomb attack near a US army training base, throwing the country's election preparations into chaos less than 48 hours before voting was due to begin.
A NATO convoy of foreign troops was targeted in the latest bomb attack, which killed at least seven civilians and wounded more than 50. Afghans working for the United Nations were among the dead and wounded, officials said.
A NATO spokeswoman said the bomb went off on a major road near the US base Camp Phoenix, where US soldiers train Afghan National Army recruits.
This followed two early-morning rocket attacks on Kabul: one that hit the compound of the presidential palace and the other the city's main police headquarters. Presidential spokesman Hamid Elmi said no-one was wounded in the attacks.
Five also died in a suicide attack on an army base in Oruzgan province.
The attacks came as Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission cancelled a news conference on the final polling booth locations. The commission was understood yesterday to be making last-minute changes to the location of its voting centres as a result of escalating attacks across the country by Taliban militants intent on disrupting the poll.
The changes forced a scramble within the main independent election overseer, which is deploying more than 8000 election monitors in an effort to guard against anticipated widespread vote-rigging. Free and Fair Election Foundation chairman Nader Nadery said he had been notified of some of the changes and his organisation was now racing to adapt.
"They have shared some of the changes with us but we don't know the full extent of them," Mr Nadery told The Australian yesterday.

The IEC has indicated there could be as many as three million fraudulent voter cards, concentrated in the war-torn east of the country.

Also yesterday, reports emerged that the Taliban leadership had redeployed some of its most hardline militants before tomorrow's elections into areas where local insurgents are reluctant to attack their own people.

The Taliban stepped up its threats this week, vowing to attack polling stations and warning through night letters posted in villages across the country that those carrying the tell-tale ink stain to prove they had voted risked dire consequences.


THE Taliban's campaign of intimidation before tomorrow's Afghanistan election is working in the Chora Valley, where Australian troops and the local Afghan commander are predicting a low voter turnout.
    Captain Abdul Samad, of the Afghan National Army, has grave doubts about the election. "Only a minority will vote in this area due to Taliban intimidation," he said. "They are under the control of the Taliban and they are scared."
    Diggers based at Combat Outpost Mashal said locals simply were not interested, or were too scared to vote.
Ian McPhedran

STRIDING out of a polling booth in central Kabul as one of the first Afghans to cast his vote, Ramin held aloft an ink-stained finger and proudly proclaimed: "I have voted."

"I'm proud of my finger," the 27-year-old security guard said after casting his vote today.
"It's the symbol of a great day for Afghanistan.

"I don't care about the Taliban and their threats. Who do they think they are? We have a government, police, army, the infrastructure of a functioning state. The Taliban are all talk."

Ramin was among about 20 people who began queuing outside the Abdul Hadi Dawi secondary school before the 7am (1230 AEST) start of voting despite fears of violence, to beat the crowds and the heat of the day.

Standing nearby, churning a string of white worry beads through hands held behind his back, Omar said he wanted to use his vote to bring honest leadership to his impoverished, corrupted country.

"I want a person who is strong, who will work to develop the economy, build roads and schools, make education a priority, annihilate corruption," said Omar, 60, who like many Afghans only uses one name.

As the gates opened on the dot of seven, those in the queue moved slowly forward to be lightly frisked by security guards before making their way to separate rooms set up as voting stations for men and women.

Outside what usually serves as a teacher's room - lined with metal lockers and with charts taped to the walls - Babi Haji stood patiently, her body shrouded in a diaphanous white cotton shawl and looking older than her 44 years.

She knew the horrors of repression and years of civil war that had seemed endless until the 2001 US-led invasion toppled the Taliban, she said.

"I lost an arm 11 years ago when the car I was in hit a landmine," she said.
"Now I want my children to be well fed and safe. That's why I have come to select a president who will bring us a secure future."

Sur Gul, a caretaker at the school wearing a dark green turban and tawny shalwar khameez, clutched his voter registration card and proudly showed the hole punched in it last time he voted for his president in 2004.

He was looking forward to getting the second hole in it, he said, before he shuffled towards the voting room in his open-toed plastic sandals.

Voting got off to a slow but steady start compared to the long queues that gathered before polling stations opened in 2004 amid a sweeping nationwide security clampdown to prevent threatened Taliban attacks.

Seventeen million Afghans have registered to elect a president and 420 councillors in 34 provinces across the largely rural and impoverished country.

Across the country, Afghans appeared determined to defy a prolonged Taliban anti-election campaign of violence aimed at keeping them away from the polls.

In Kandahar, one of the Taliban hotspots - and the capital of the extremist regime during its 1996-2001 rule - voters could be seen walking towards voting stations to join lengthening lines.

"There are problems in Kandahar but I'm still voting, said 40-year-old Mohammad Nisar.
"I'm voting for the sake of a good future, I have brought my female relatives too," he said, gesturing towards three veiled women sitting in a nearby car.

In eastern Nangahar province, 80-year-old Abdul Aziz said his vote would go to the candidate he believed could bring clean government.

"I'm voting against corruption," he said without revealing his choice.

"I'm so glad to be voting at this age. I'm happy that I'm alive and voting again."

In Kabul, Wadood Ghorbandi, a 58-year-old investment director said: "This election sees us as Afghans choosing our own fate. It will bring changes for every single person and will give our country an identity.

"Man is always seeking change. Every step forward that we take is in reality a change. But the change must be positive, not negative," he said.