Afghan Minority Savors Its Pivotal Role in Runoff - WSJ.com

The Hazaras, After Centuries of Discrimination and Religious Persecution, May Be Decisive Bloc in Determining Next President

By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV

KABUL -- Afghanistan's Hazara minority is enjoying a historic turnabout after centuries of oppression: It has become the kingmaker in the country's Nov. 7 presidential runoff.

The maverick Hazara candidate, Ramazan Bashardost, garnered 10.5% of the votes in August's first round, placing third after President Hamid Karzai and former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah. The runoff between Mr. Karzai and Dr. Abdullah that will decide the next president now hinges, to a great extent, on Bashardost's largely Hazara supporters. Mr. Bashardost has endorsed neither contender.

"The Hazara vote is crucial: Whoever they support will become the winner," says Ali Akbar Kazemi, head of Eqtedar-e-Melli, a predominantly Hazara party backing Dr. Abdullah.

In the World of the Hazara

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A Hazara woman and her child left Kabul's Jafaria Mosque Friday.

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While the Hazaras account for only one-tenth of Afghanistan's population, their voting power is much greater because central Afghanistan's Hazara heartland is almost untouched by the Taliban insurgency that kept voters at home in many other parts of the country. In August, the Hazaras accounted for an estimated one-quarter of ballots cast.

Espousing the Shiite sect of Islam in a predominantly Sunni country, the Hazaras -- who appear strikingly different from other Afghans because of their Mongol features -- have long been subjected to discrimination and worse. Thousands of Hazaras were massacred by Afghan kings in the late 19th century. In the late 1990s, the Taliban -- who consider the Shiites to be heretics -- carried out another round of slaughter.

"The Hazaras are the most deprived people in the whole country," Dr. Abdullah said in an interview, pledging to develop the impoverished Hazara districts if he wins the planned runoff.

(Earlier this week, Dr. Abdullah threatened to boycott the Nov. 7 vote unless Mr. Karzai dismissed election officials who Dr. Abdullah says were involved in fraud in the first round. Mr. Karzai declined to do so. Dr. Abdullah is expected to clarify his intentions over the weekend.)

Recent interviews with dozens of Hazaras of different ages and from all walks of life indicate that winning the Hazaras' support will be a challenge for Dr. Abdullah. Many of those who voted for Mr. Bashardost in the first round say they will either back Mr. Karzai in the runoff or stay home. Such behavior is likely to translate into a victory for Mr. Karzai -- who gained a significant part of the Hazara vote in the first round.

Mr. Karzai, a member of Afghanistan's biggest ethnic community, the Pashtuns, has long courted the Hazaras. He appointed a Hazara as one of his two vice presidents and named Hazaras to key government jobs. He also fulfilled a series of Hazara demands, giving official state recognition to Shiite Islamic jurisprudence and carving out a separate Hazara-majority province, Daykundi, from the Pashtun-dominated Uruzgan. Hazara leaders expect Mr. Karzai to create additional Hazara-majority provinces from parts of the provinces of Ghazni and Wardak, which adjoin the Hazara heartland.

"The vast majority of the Hazaras will vote for Karzai in the runoff. I wouldn't call his presidency a golden age, but he has certainly done a lot of good things for the Hazaras," says parliamentarian Mohammed Mohaqeq, a Hazara and a former warlord who placed third in the 2004 presidential elections, with 11.4% of the vote. Mr. Mohaqeq endorsed Mr. Karzai in the current race, saying "our community's leaders have told their people to vote for Karzai, and the people will follow their leaders."

After the fall of the Soviet-installed regime in 1992, Mr. Mohaqeq's Hazara militia vied for control of Kabul with the mainly ethnic Tajik forces of Ahmad Shah Masood, reducing much of the city to rubble. Dr. Abdullah was Mr. Masood's key aide at the time -- a fact still remembered in Kabul's Hazara neighborhoods, where ruins of once-stately buildings provide a daily reminder of the ethnic clashes.

"We had a really hard time during the civil war. Our homes were shelled every day and walking even 100 meters was impossible," says Amin Mohammed, a 60-year-old Hazara baker in Kabul's Chendawal neighborhood who voted for Mr. Bashardost in the first round and plans to vote for Mr. Karzai in the runoff.

In a nearby tea parlor, one among two dozen Hazara men expressed support for Dr. Abdullah; the rest praised Mr. Karzai. "Karzai treats all ethnicities -- Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara -- the same. When he came to power, he brought an end to discrimination," said the parlor's owner, 70-year-old Ali Ehsan Agha Jan.

Even Dr. Abdullah's backers among the Hazaras recognize the improvements in their community's status under Mr. Karzai. "It's true that Karzai has done many things for the Hazaras. But it doesn't mean we should turn a blind eye to his mistakes," said Mr. Kazemi, the Eqtedar-e-Melli party chief who is backing Dr. Abdullah. The Hazaras, he said, should cast their ballots "putting the national interest ahead of the ethnic one."

Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com