District plans elections while Governor eats grapes

photo: (c) Simon Klingert

Nugram, district center- Afghan officials and American soldiers were all in place, they'd been preparing for this Shura (meeting) to discuss how to implement the upcoming national elections, for weeks, everyone had a part, everyone except for the governor. While sub-governors and village elders met with the lieutenant colonel of the nearby base, he lounged on the bottom floor eating grapes.

“I’m sick," said Gov. Jamaludin Badar, holding his stomach. “I send my sub-governor. I go to a lot of shuras.”

The district center is a dilapidated three floor shell of a building, but it is surrounded by police and now a Afghan Army regiment, so it’s quite popular among local officials. The 2nd-77th Field Artillery Regiment of the 4th Brigade 4th ID, has been singularly focused on this pre-election meeting- namely getting the sub-governors, the village elders and the election District Field Coordinators together in one room.

“If we can get the village elders to accept the district field coordinators, and the elders to provide reliable people to facilitate, we’ll get a peaceful election,” said Commander Lt. Col. Forsythe, who's also been worried about an ongoing tribal feud that started over some goats, led to a murder, and the burning of half a village. Meanwhile, he’s focused his whole regiment's patrols around the election. A major operation to hunt down mortar-launching insurgents was changed in order to prevent any possible election spoilers around the province's population centers.
And today the district's players seemed to agree they needed to agree- no small feat among the disparate tribes in a region with six distinct dialects. A hundred or so Afghan men from the surrounding villages, squatted on carpets and listened carefully to the sub-governor Mohammad Ali Awab’s call for coordinated security of the polling sites.

District Field Coordinators, who were selected by the U.N. sponsored- Afghan Independent Election Commission for their literacy levels, stood solemnly and introduced themselves one by one. “We ask the tribal leaders to ensure our security,” said a local Field Coordinator. “We’ll hire people (to man) the polling stations to support the election process in our villages.”

A half-blind elder from Kala Gush, Oglam Sahib, once a member of the Afghan Parliament stood on his cane and made a heart-felt call to the men assembled, “Everyone has a right to choose a leader! Your vote is priceless! We need to choose someone who is honest for our country!

“We have nothing- no electricity, schools, no clean water. What do you want? The government can provide us these things. We have a proud country, these people are here to help us,” Sahib said, gesturing to the Coordinators and also to Lt. Col. Forsythe, who did not to speak during the shura.

(c) Simon Klingert

Meanwhile the highest government official, appointed by President Karzai, chatted with several of his bearded entourage also lounging on pillows. “I’m the youngest governor in the history of Afghanistan,” Badar, who’s 34 and has been governor for nine months, said. “The President can get rid of me at any time, but I have a good exam… because Nuristan was dangerous, right now the situation is getting better if we compare now and last year. We’re working hard, until midnight I stay in the office, I’m working with people in the villages. Other governors can’t do that. I’m from Nuristan, I like these people.”

He was from Nuristan, but he was kind of hard to believe. Nevertheless he was the governor and he wore gold-rimmed glasses and a gold and black leather watch. He said he’d attended university in Saudi Arabia and had worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kabul. “The diplomatic life is a good life," he said and also that he wanted to go to the U.S. on a cultural visit, to see good governance in practice. “Afghan life is jail,” he said, gesturing to the walls of the district center, “If I stay here I’m in jail.”

There are 34 governors in Afghanistan, all appointed directly by the president. Nuristan province has seven sub-governors appointed by the governor. A June 2009, International Crisis Group report said, "The presidential elections in particular expose a highly centralized political patronage system in which the head of state wields enormous powers, bringing personalities rather than policies to the fore."

We had lunch with him, a combination of Afghan flat bread and the base’s trucked in fried chicken, washed down with traditional yogurt drink and canned Sprite. Gov. Badar said he would sit down for an interview if we could find a good translator, he said, "not all of them are educated."

"Inshallah," (If God wills it) I said. The governor smiled. This interview was not going to happen.

(c) Simon Klingert

“We’re succeeding,” said Lt. Fredrick Miles, who’s helped set up the district center with SFC Ronald Smith. “The most effective tool against the Taliban is the people. It’s just very slow moving."

“All the people want is roads,” SFC Smith said. “We built them a school and they chopped up the benches for firewood.”

Gov. Badar confirmed this, he rattled off a handful of what he called smaller projects, roads built by USAID, the PRT, the Army Corps of Engineers, to the tune of $1 to 5 million each.

“We have problems with neighbor countries. We cannot be compared to the western world. We have 30 years of war in this area.”

Certainly he was right, in one sense, but it was hard not to think the governor’s posture today represented some of the problems holding the country back.

The same June 2009 International Crisis Group report said, “Rather than once again running the polls merely as distinct events, the enormous resources and attention focused on the elections should be channeled into strengthening political and electoral institutions, as a key part of the state-building efforts required to produce a stable country…This time they will be conducted under the sole steward-ship of the Afghan Independent Election Commission (IEC) with the UN acting only in support…"