Afghanistan Election Conundrum (19): A young 'wave of change' for the Wolesi Jirga? Author : Thomas Ruttig Published: 18 October 2018 Downloaded: 19 October 2018 Download URL: https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/wp-admin/post.php?t=1539931703937 Afghanistan’s parliamentary election campaign ended on Wednesday 17 October 2018 with the killing of Helmand candidate Jabbar Qahraman by a mine explosion in his campaign office – the fifth candidate killed during the campaign period. “Taghir” – change – has been a key word in many of the campaigns and a hope expressed by many voters, even though the slogans were rarely backed by detailed political programmes. Among the 2565 candidates running countrywide – 418 of them women according to IEC figures – there are many new faces, alongside a majority of the sitting MPs. Thomas Ruttig and the AAN team look at the spectrum of candidates and ponder what the turnover in the Wolesi Jirga might be (without claiming to be complete or exhaustive). AAN has put together a dossier of dispatches related to the coming elections, looking at preparations and political manoeuvring. Each dispatch in the Election Conundrum series will be added to it. A desire for change “Taghir” – change – had already been a key word during the presidential election in 2014. Chief Executive Dr Abdullah represented a coalition called “Taghir wa Omid” (change and hope) and although president Ashraf Ghani did not use the word in his slogans, he did run on a promise of 1 / 15 change, while preserving what had been achieved: “tahawol wa tadawom” (“transformation and continuity”). This time, “taghir” features again, as illustrated by many candidate posters and in some of the programmes that candidates distributed, some in print, others on memory sticks. A surprising number of candidates who declare themselves ‘pro-reform’ are wealthy businessmen. One of them is Fahim Hashemi, running in Kabul. He is the owner of one of the biggest private television channels, One TV, and a big contractor for the international troops and oil import business. On his election materiel, the word “taghir” is the only feature, apart from his name, election symbol and ballot number. Similarly, another big business candidate for Kabul, Khan Muhammad Wardak, owner of one of Afghanistan’s biggest companies, Khan Steel, and also in the contracting business, further developed the slogan to say: Khan Muhammad ta raya, musbat badlun ta raya (“Vote for Khan Muhammad, vote for positive change”). So did Muhammad Latif Fayaz, from Ghazni province but running from Kabul under the slogan: Ba tadbir ba su-ye taghir (“With a plan for change“). He has worked for the United Nations and several national and international NGOs and is now teaching at private universities. Muhammad Sangar Amirzada, also competing in Kabul and a former member of ex-president Hamed Karzai’s chief of staff office, heads the youth activists’ network Shabaka-ye Eslah wa Taghir (“Network for Reform and Change“) affiliated with former minister and presidential hopeful for 2019 Omar Daudzai. Many of the candidate businessman, and also some of the candidates with civil society background, own or run institutions of higher learning. This caters to the widespread demand for higher education, gives them an air of philanthropy, and helps create a voter base. Jan Muhammad Sherzad, a candidate in Helmand, told AAN that he believes that all 300 students of his English courses will vote for him (although, as usual, candidates have a tendency to overestimate the strength of their ties). The next generation? Conversations with many Afghans in the run-up to this election, as well as media reports indicate that there is widespread hope, again, that a new, young generation of candidates will make it into the now 250 seats-strong Wolesi Jirga. The hope underneath is that they will behave more honestly than the current set of parliamentarians who, as the New York Times recently wrote, are “notoriously corrupt” (see also AAN research on corruption in the Afghan parliament here and this AFP news item here). A poll by the Afghanistan Institute for Strategic Studies (AISS) published this month showed that only 9.6 per cent of respondents answered ‘yes’ when asked whether they were “satisfied” with the work of the current set of members of parliament (15.1 per cent said “somehow”) and only 6.5 per cent said they had “benefited” from their work (10.2 per cent said “somehow”). This hope that a new generation will be voted in is fortified by the many new and young faces on some candidate lists, particularly in Kabul. In the capital alone, 804 candidates are running – the ballot paper has a newspaper format, with 15 pages – which leaves enough space for new, 2 / 15 young faces. The officially published candidates’ lists however (see here; the lists themselves are in Dari only) do not give the dates of birth of the contenders, so their ages must be guessed. On many provincial lists, from Kunar via Uruzgan, Parwan and Panjshir to Herat, the faces of elders and mid-agers dominate. Sons, daughters and relatives of the post-2001 establishment: politicians, former mujahedin leaders, businessmen Among the younger candidates, the children and relatives of well-known warlords-turned- politicians and members of other prominent families are most easily identifiable. Some Afghan media have already browsed through the lists and categorised the candidates – foremost the Dari-only news website Khabarnama (see here). One subcategory extensively described are the sons, daughters and other relatives of the first tier of the mujahedin party leaders, such as: Bator Dostum running from Jawzjan province: son of General Abdulrashid Dostum, first vice president and leader of the Uzbek-dominated Jombesh party, Muhammad Baqer Muhaqeq and Muhammad Ali Muhaqeq, running from Kabul and Balkh respectively: sons of Haji Muhammad Muhaqeq, leader of one of the Hazara- dominated parties, Hezb-e Wahdat and second deputy of the chief executive, Muhammad Alem Khalili running from Kabul: son of Muhammad Karim Khalili, the leader of another Hazara-dominated party, Hezb-e Wahdat-e Mardom, a former vice president and now chairman of the High Peace Council (HPC); Haji Abdul Reza Khalili running from Kabul with the slogan “Excellence, pragmatism and accountability”: a nephew of HPC chief Khalili, with interests in real estate; he reportedly also owns production companies for mineral water and construction materials, Jamaluddin Hekmatyar running from Kabul: son of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the recently reconciled leader of Hezb-e Islami Afghanistan (AAN background here), Zaher Qadir, a sitting MP already and the son of late eastern mujahedin leader Haji Qadir, in Nangrahar, Sayed Taha Sadeq running from Herat: son of western Afghanistan’s grey eminence, former governor Ismail Khan, Sayed Mujtaba Anwari and Sayed Mahdi Anwari, both running in Kabul: sons of the late Sayed Hussain Anwari, leader of the Shia mujahedin party Harakat-e Islami, former minister of agriculture and of planning and former governor of Kabul and Herat. None of the major ‘mujahedin party’ leaders are running themselves: not Sayyaf, Qanuni or Muhaqeq who were members of both the 2005 and 2010 Wolesi Jirgas (1); HamedGailani, who was candidate in 2005, or Ismail Khan and Hekmatyar, who had so far never ran. Other – not so young – close relatives of powerful politicians include Muhammad Rafiq Sherzai, the brother of 2014 presidential candidate and former Kandahar and Nangrahar governor Gul Agha Sherzai, and Humayun Ramazan, the brother of Ahmad Shah Ramazan, a sitting MP; 3 / 15 both are running from Balkh. Also, Sayeda Massuda Yari, daughter-in-law of late Haji Sulaiman Yari, who was a selected senator for the Upper House from Maidan Wardak, and Ruqia Alemi Balkhi, sister of minister for Refugees and Returnees Sayed Hussain Alemi Balkhi. Both are running from Kabul. Almost as well known, at least among Afghans, are those from the families of the second tier of former mujahedin leaders: Zabihullah Almas, running from Kabul: son of sitting MP Haji Muhammad Almas Zahed from Parwan province, who was recently appointed as presidential advisor and is not running again, Haji Ajmal Rahmani, running from Kabul: nephew of General Baba Jan, a major commander in the area of Bagram airbase, who became rich as a contractor providing for the base’s supplies and is said to be financially supporting a number of other candidates; Haji Ajmal himself recently injected substantial capital into Afghanistan’s professional football league – now named the “Rahmani Foundation Afghan Premier League” in his honour – and bought one of its teams. (A brother of Baba Jan is also running, again: Mir Rahman Rahmani, currently the head of the Wolesi Jirga’s economic commission), Azizullah Amiri, running from Kunduz: son of late commander Amir, one of the famous Ittehad-e Islami leaders in the north, running for the first time, Haidar Khan Naimzai, a current MP who is running for the kuchi constituency again: son of Naim Kuchi, a former Taleb who reconciled with the Karzai government after he was released from Guantanamo, Mir Wais Salam, running for a kuchi seat, while his father, sitting MP Abdul Salam Raketi, runs in Zabul, Shah Aghasi Ibrahimkhel, running from Balkh: son of famous Jihad-time commander Akhtar Muhammad Ibrahimkhel (better known as Akhtar Luchak), Bashir Ahmad Ziayi, running from Takhar: son of Mullah Piram Qul Ziayi, one of the most important Jamiati commanders in the northeast and a 2005 MP, who branched out into the militia ‘business’ (AAN background here), Ahmad Tamim Jurat, running from Kabul: son of General Din Muhammad Jurat, a commander under late commander Ahmad Shah Massud, former deputy National Security Advisor and presidential advisor on security and defense who was sacked on 1 October 2018 with Zia-ur-Rahman Kashmir Khan, in Kunar, the son of insurgent Hezb-e Islami commander Kashmir Khan, who reportedly died in a Pakistani capital in 2016, runs.