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The World’s Jeb Sharp examines the influence of Afghanistan’s ethnic and regional loyalties in tomorrow’s presidential election.

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LISA MULLINS: Afghanistan has also had its share of violence in the run-up to tomorrow’s presidential election and the Taliban have vowed to attack polling stations on election day. Afghan officials are so concerned about the impact on voter turnout that they issued a statement today. It said news organizations should avoid, “broadcasting any incidents of violence between 6 am and 5 pm on election day. Meanwhile President Hamid Karzai is urging people to get out and vote as The World’s Jeb Sharp reports those who do are likely to vote largely along ethnic lines.

JEB SHARP: President Karzai himself accentuated the nature of Afghan voting patterns this week when he courted the 4 million strong Uzbek vote. He did that by pardoning the notorious Uzbek warlord, Abdul Rashid Dostum, and inviting him home from exile in Turkey. Dostum immediately went to work campaigning for Karzai. South Asia expert Lisa Curtis at the Heritage Foundation says it showed how worried Karzai is about his chances against his strongest challenger.

LISA CURTIS: I think he is concerned about the inroads that the former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah has made with both the Uzbek and Tajik populations, particularly in the north. So this is an effort by Karzai to try to take away some of that vote bank from Abdullah Abdullah.

SHARP: But Abdullah is also half Pashtun which may help him win some votes away from President Karzai. Pashtuns make up almost half the population. They’re the largest ethnic group with about 13 million people followed by Tajiks, Hazaras, and Uzbeks. Selig Harrison of the Center for International Policy says Karzai is working hard to secure both Uzbek and Hazara votes because he’s uncertain about how he’ll do among Tajiks and his own group, Pashtuns.

SELIG HARRISON: When it’s all over, if we are able to see where the votes were cast in ethnic terms, we will see that the Uzbek-Hazara alliance was important to Karzai.

SHARP: One reason Karzai has less allegiance among Pashtuns then you might expect is Pashtun resentment over the fact that ethnic Tajiks now dominate the security posts in Karzai’s government. Harrison believes that anger has helped drive Pashtuns into the ranks of the Taliban. He says the reality of ethnic and regional loyalties shows how weak Afghan national institutions really are.

HARRISON: We’re a very long way from a quote “modern” Afghanistan, in which ethnic and tribal identities are subordinated to some sort of national government. And any order that is developed in Afghanistan will have to take it into account, the fact that it’s always been a very decentralized country.

SHARP: On the other hand, just because it’s decentralized, doesn’t mean it wants to split apart, says Amin Tarzi, director of Middle East Studies at the Marine Corps University. He says he doesn’t like comparing Iraq and Afghanistan but it’s worth pointing out that the role of ethnicity is quite different in each country. In the relatively young country of Iraq, a strong dictatorial state was used to hold disparate ethnicities together. Once Saddam was gone, centrifugal forces threatened to tear it apart. In Afghanistan, Tarzi says, rival ethnic groups still feel part of a larger entity, Afghanistan.

AMIN TARZI: In all of these times Afghanistan could have split it never did. There is an Afghanness. As much exclusivity as there is there, there is an inclusive Afghan nation system. Yes the Soviet invasion in 1979 destroyed it, it halted it, but still it’s there. Afghanistan is an older country and there’s a lot of pride in that system – stay together because there is that notion. You don’t have these people saying okay we’re going to split.

SHARP: Tarzi is heartened that the election is taking place at all but he’s clearly worried by the violence and lack of hope Afghans are living with. Alex Thier is also worried. He directs the Future of Afghanistan Project at the US Institute of Peace. Thier fears insecurity will hamper the vote and he’s concerned about Afghans crying fowl over the results, especially if Karzai wins outright on the first round.

ALEX THIER: The best thing that could happen for Afghanistan’s democracy, I believe, would be for this election to go into a second round and for there to be probably President Karzai and one other challenger who can really make a strong case for their vision for the future. So far the Afghan election has not really been based on platforms; it’s been based on personalities, which is not a strong basis for the election.

SHARP: No one’s saying the outcome of tomorrow’s election will solve Afghanistan’s problems, but the hope at least is that it won’t make them worse. For The World I’m Jeb Sharp.

MULLINS: You can hear more about Afghanistan on Jeb Sharp’s history podcast, ‘How We Got Here.’ Check out Afghanistan’s precarious moment. Just visit The World dot org slash history to subscribe.

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