Live from "Jay-Bad"

Live from “Jay-Bad”

Jalalabad. Population about 300,000, but there hasn’t been a census in decades. It’s a Pashtun area and the local governor, Gul Agha Sherzai, was installed by President Karzai to move him away from his power-base in Kandarhar (try Google for colorful stories about the man). Election observers are neutral, don’t prejudge the outcome of an election in terms of actual outcome — who gets elected — but also on whether the process is free and fair. So, we can only report what we hear. Voices in Jalalabad. One international worker declared, “This is my 23rd election observation and I’ve never seen one this corrupt.” (This does not mean this person’s organization will accept this one individual assessment about this city and certainly not necessarily about the country…) Our young male interpreters, recent university graduates, went over to talk to head of the independent Afghan foundation also observing the elections. When they asked him for his expectations for security and fraud on Thursday, election day, they were told: “I can’t say anything about security, but we are 100% certain there will be fraud.” An Australian told us that he purchased 300 registration cards. A French Canadian offered bluntly, “It’s a mess.”

The long-term international observers — long-term is relative to our 3-4 days; they have been here for an average of two weeks — agreed that if in 2004 President Karzai got about 97 % of the vote in this province — Nangarhar — then he’ll probably get 80% of the vote tomorrow. The numbers will stay overwhelmingly with Karzai, but he’s slipped in popularity, probably much more than 17%. The accepted wisdom in the city is that Sherzai is going to deliver Nangarhar to Karzai so he can get a better job. And the Pastun people here don’t think the other Pastun candidate, Asraf Ghani (former finance minister under Karzai who disagreed bitterly with him during his tenure early in the Karzai administration) has the “juice” to win the Presidency anyway. We’ll see soon enough.

As in most Pastun areas, the focus here is on provincial elections — posters are pasted EVERYWHERE, colorful, small, large billboards, small flapping flags, the storefronts have their clay dust papered over in blues and the Afghan colors — red, green, black. There is a lot of interest and enthusiasm at that level. There are 235 candidates in Nangarhar for 19 seats and 15 of these are women competing first against one another for the five seats that comprise the women’s quota (and if they don’t make that against the men). The relatively conservative nature of this province and the fact that the Taliban-controls most of the province and all of the rural areas (where international election observers will not be observed tomorrow) — means fewer female candidates and voters of any stripe will vote. In Nuristan, European Union observers told us, only half of the polling stations will open tomorrow.

We are about to head out onto the large patio on the third floor of our safe house with our bulky protectors (hired beefy bodyguards) to watch the “steel rainstorm” of mortars forecast by the intelligence analysts. Further description is sadly impeded by the slight possibility unique features of our living quarters will reveal our “position.”

Election day tomorrow.  More to follow.

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