Karzai faces off with 2 rivals

Washington Post

KABUL, Afghanistan — After failing to show up for the first televised debate of the campaign, President Hamid Karzai took on two rivals Sunday night who described his government as mired in corruption and deficient in bringing jobs and security to Afghanistan.

In the nearly two-hour debate against former finance minister Ashraf Ghani and former planning minister Ramazan Bashardost, Karzai calmly defended his record and sought to portray Afghanistan as vastly improved since he took over leadership of the country in 2001 after the fall of the Taliban. Karzai will face off with Ghani, Bashardost and others in a field of 41 candidates who are vying to win the presidency in Thursday’s vote.

“Afghanistan, which has suffered a lot, was totally lost. I saved it,” Karzai said.

The event Sunday, sponsored by Radio Free Europe and held in an auditorium operated by Afghanistan’s national television station, marked the first time during the campaign that Karzai has publicly debated his opponents. But the candidate considered the strongest challenger to Karzai, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, chose not to participate.

Bashardost, an ethnic Hazara who has been running his campaign from a tent in Kabul and has vowed to operate without security guards if he wins, was the most colorful candidate Sunday.

He attacked government corruption and incompetence and said Afghans are attracted to the Taliban’s style of swift, brutal justice because they receive no help with their problems from local officials. He said he would throw out the officials who “are just putting dollars in their pockets.”

“There is a hole in their pockets that will never be filled,” he said. “We should have a president who has integrity and who will not be the slave of the foreigners, but rather respect the national interest of Afghanistan.”

Karzai attempted to shift blame for the nation’s problems away from his government.

He said Western troops helped incite Taliban violence in recent years through invasive searches of Afghan homes and by causing civilian casualties.

He also stressed his view that Afghanistan’s problems with violence and terrorism come from outside countries and are not a homegrown problem.

He emphasized how Afghanistan’s budget revenue and per-capita income had grown during his tenure. “The lifestyle has gotten better in this country,” he said.

Karzai said that if he was elected, he would convene a grand council, or loya jirga, including the Taliban and other militant Islamist groups, to try to forge a peace deal.

Bashardost questioned whether the Taliban is ready to negotiate.