EurasiaNet Eurasia Insight - Afghanistan: Corruption is the Mother of Insurgency -- Presidential Challenger

EURASIA INSIGHT

AFGHANISTAN: CORRUPTION IS THE MOTHER OF INSURGENCY -- PRESIDENTIAL CHALLENGER
Joshua Kucera 4/28/09

While Afghanistan’s incumbent president, Hamid Karzai, has sought to put a little distance between himself and the United States in recent months, one of his leading challengers in the upcoming presidential vote, Ashraf Ghani, thinks the best way to combat the Taliban insurgency is for Kabul to strengthen ties with Washington and to focus on economic development.

Ghani, a former finance minister of Afghanistan, is one of a crowded field of high-profile presidential candidates, including Abdullah Abdullah, the country’s first post-Taliban foreign minister, who has since broken with Karzai; Zalmay Khalilzad, the Afghan-born former US ambassador to Kabul; and Karzai himself.

Ghani spoke April 22 at the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC. The official purpose of the event was to launch the council’s new report on Afghanistan, titled A Ten-Year Framework for Afghanistan: Executing the Obama Plan and Beyond. And the organizers of the event took pains to insist that they were non-partisan and were not endorsing Ghani for president. Ghani’s analysis of, and proposals for, Afghanistan could nevertheless be easily interpreted as a campaign platform.

While the three well known threats to Afghanistan’s stability are al Qaeda, the local insurgency and drug trafficking, those threats are abetted by the poor performance of Afghanistan’s Karzai administration, he said. "Bad governance and corruption have created the vacuum to allow for the three other threats to be consolidated. Unless we, and until we address this central issue of the threat that emanates from bad governance, we are not going to make a break," he said.

Ghani said that the fair conduct of the election, scheduled for August, and the legitimacy that it would give the government, is critical to the stability of the country. "The game-changer is not the insurgency and counterinsurgency battle to the finish. The game-changer is to produce a legitimate election, that the next government of Afghanistan can have a mandate for governing," he said. "I’ve talked, at least, to tens of thousands of people since July in a very organized process of consultation. . . .What they want is a functioning government that is accountable to them, foreign forces that are directed by rule of law, [and] a development discourse that really is about change of opportunities."

He had high praise for the decision by US President Barack Obama to commit further resources and troops to Afghanistan. "President Obama has walked the walk; he has not simply talked the talk. To commit more forces in this time is an act of both courage and statesmanship. But, also, the commitment of resources that that entails is quite a significant statement," he said. He also alluded to a long-term US military presence in Afghanistan, citing the US military bases in Korea as an example of something to which Afghanistan could aspire.

The renewed US commitment to Afghanistan and the August elections represent a "second chance" for Afghanistan, Ghani said. "Afghans have to do our part," he said. "International commitment is not going to be there forever -- but it is here, and we need to utilize it."

He identified the expansion of economic opportunities as the key to the country’s future. "The most common definition of a Talib is an unemployed youth," he said. "My goal would be to create one million jobs in two years. And five sectors -- agriculture, mining, construction, transport and information-communication technology -- can provide this."

Afghanistan has the natural resources to succeed as a country without drugs, Ghani insisted. He cited a recent US Geological Survey assessment that found significant potential for mining in the country, in particular for copper and iron ore. "Afghanistan is not Iraq ? but it has enough natural resources to provide the basis of a sustainable economy that would be an alternative to a drug economy," he said.

In addition, Afghanistan has water resources. "We have 80 billion cubic meters of water a year, and we pump 60 billion of it to our neighbors, without getting anything in return. But water, during the next 10 years, is going to become as valuable as oil, if not more so," he said.

While broadly critical of the current government, he did identify two successful policies the Karzai administration has implemented -- both of which he spearheaded as finance minister: the National Solidarity Program, a rural development initiative; and the development of the telecommunications sector. Ghani said he would use the National Solidarity Program as a model for further development.

Editor's Note: Joshua Kucera is a Washington, DC,-based freelance writer who specializes in security issues in Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Middle East.