Afghanistan MP plots path from tent to presidential palace
Friday, 4 April 2008
Jon Boone
THE scruffy tent pitched on a dusty scrap of land in front of Afghanistan's parliament has a good claim to being the most unassuming presidential campaign headquarters in the world.
Its occupant, a slightly built Afghan MP who eschews the armed body guards favoured by most high-profile politicians, sits on a plastic chair in his tent's gloomy interior and chats with anyone who wants to drop by.
Ramazan Bashar Dost, who represents a seat in the capital, Kabul, says he developed the idea for a public meeting place from Speakers' Corner in London's Hyde Park, and would rather use the money that he would otherwise spend on a proper office to give to the poor.
However, the ramshackle, yurt-like structure with just enough room for a dozen people is the base from which he is plotting an unlikely bid to become his country's president.
"We have to change the leadership of our country if we are ever to become rich and democratic. The current people in power destroyed Afghanistan. We have had six years of [President Hamid] Karzai, and it has not been a good experience."
In the past few days, he has become the first politician to formally declare his hand in presidential elections expected next year, although it remains to be seen whether he will be able to play anything more than a role on the fringes of what will undoubtedly be a hard fought campaign.
While there is endless speculation about who else will run, and plenty of campaigning behind closed doors, the most likely candidates have all given mealy-mouthed answers when asked about their ambitions.
"They are not honest enough to say what they are really thinking," says Mr Bashar Dost.
At a time of growing alarm among Afghanistan's international military and financial backers at the poor progress the country has made in developing a clean and effective government, next year's election will be a crucial.
Mr Bashar Dost, a former minister of planning who acquired a degree in political science (and his French accent) at university in Paris, believes he is the man for the job and thinks that his policies of rooting out corrupt governors and ministers will prove popular.
On the plastic picnic table in front of him are files and documents that he says prove the outrageousness of the level of corruption in his country.
He rattles through details of alleged thefts, dodgy contracts and ministers dipping into their departmental budgets as if they were their personal bank accounts, all of which have not been investigated, he says.
But it will be a political miracle if his anti-corruption mantra is enough to convince his countrymen to vote for him.
For a start he is a Hazara, the smallest ethnic group in a country where the received wisdom is that the president must be from the biggest, the Pashtuns. Moreover, he will be competing against well-resourced campaigns capable of buying support from tribal elders.
Still, Mr Bashar Dost is not daunted. He believes he is a national figure with a reputation for honesty and thinks a cheap and cheerful campaign could transcend ethnic differences and beat Mr Karzai, assuming that he runs again.
"Karzai is like Gorbachev - he is a lot more popular in other countries than he is at home," he says.
By Syndication Service with FE
THE scruffy tent pitched on a dusty scrap of land in front of Afghanistan's parliament has a good claim to being the most unassuming presidential campaign headquarters in the world.
Its occupant, a slightly built Afghan MP who eschews the armed body guards favoured by most high-profile politicians, sits on a plastic chair in his tent's gloomy interior and chats with anyone who wants to drop by.
Ramazan Bashar Dost, who represents a seat in the capital, Kabul, says he developed the idea for a public meeting place from Speakers' Corner in London's Hyde Park, and would rather use the money that he would otherwise spend on a proper office to give to the poor.
However, the ramshackle, yurt-like structure with just enough room for a dozen people is the base from which he is plotting an unlikely bid to become his country's president.
"We have to change the leadership of our country if we are ever to become rich and democratic. The current people in power destroyed Afghanistan. We have had six years of [President Hamid] Karzai, and it has not been a good experience."
In the past few days, he has become the first politician to formally declare his hand in presidential elections expected next year, although it remains to be seen whether he will be able to play anything more than a role on the fringes of what will undoubtedly be a hard fought campaign.
While there is endless speculation about who else will run, and plenty of campaigning behind closed doors, the most likely candidates have all given mealy-mouthed answers when asked about their ambitions.
"They are not honest enough to say what they are really thinking," says Mr Bashar Dost.
At a time of growing alarm among Afghanistan's international military and financial backers at the poor progress the country has made in developing a clean and effective government, next year's election will be a crucial.
Mr Bashar Dost, a former minister of planning who acquired a degree in political science (and his French accent) at university in Paris, believes he is the man for the job and thinks that his policies of rooting out corrupt governors and ministers will prove popular.
On the plastic picnic table in front of him are files and documents that he says prove the outrageousness of the level of corruption in his country.
He rattles through details of alleged thefts, dodgy contracts and ministers dipping into their departmental budgets as if they were their personal bank accounts, all of which have not been investigated, he says.
But it will be a political miracle if his anti-corruption mantra is enough to convince his countrymen to vote for him.
For a start he is a Hazara, the smallest ethnic group in a country where the received wisdom is that the president must be from the biggest, the Pashtuns. Moreover, he will be competing against well-resourced campaigns capable of buying support from tribal elders.
Still, Mr Bashar Dost is not daunted. He believes he is a national figure with a reputation for honesty and thinks a cheap and cheerful campaign could transcend ethnic differences and beat Mr Karzai, assuming that he runs again.
"Karzai is like Gorbachev - he is a lot more popular in other countries than he is at home," he says.
By Syndication Service with FE