All Quiet as Western City Heads for Poll

In her campaign headquarters on a quiet tree-lined street in Herat, 32-year-old Fauzia Sadaat studies one of the colourful posters that she hopes will get her elected to the new Afghan parliament.

"Rule of law, industry and agriculture. A free, developed and secure Afghanistan is our hope," says her poster.

A short walk away, in a largely deserted area of shops available for rent, Kamaluddin Nezami, 33, a candidate for Herat’s provincial council, sits behind an old table in his store. A simple black-and-white flyer bears his brief campaign motto, "Your Trust is Our Pride".

The campaign styles of the two candidates, and the amount of money they are spending, could hardly be more different, but both believe their methods will bring them victory on September 18.

Sadaat rents a three-roomed house as an office for 200 US dollars a month, a fraction of the 10,000 dollars she expects to spend on her campaign. She has had 130,000 posters, flyers and business cards printed in nearby Iran, where she spent her high school years.

She and her husband are meeting all the costs without outside help, said Sadaat, speaking in the casual manner of one accustomed to money.

Like other candidates chasing the 17 parliamentary seats for this western province, Sadaat said she has had no trouble campaigning, which she does at mosques and at village meetings. Five of the seats in Herat province are reserved for women.

She says she has found a warm welcome everywhere, "One day while we were out shopping, people saw us and encircled our car, welcoming us more than I can say in words. Everyone was asking me for a poster and it was only with great difficulty that I was able to get home, without ever finishing my shopping.”

Sadaat tends towards hyperbole when discussing her campaign, "I went to one district for my election campaign, and 10,000 people had come to welcome us and… [they] formed a circle around us and showered us with flowers."

Her policy platform is simple - besides her campaign slogan, she says women’s rights are a priority.

She tells people, "I don't make promises, but in parliament I will defend your rights."

Sadaat has two daughters and four sons, with two of the children studying in Sweden.

In a downtrodden section of the city still waiting to come alive, where the old shops have been demolished to create a new traders' market, Nezami peered out as IWPR reporters arrived, apparently taking them for potential supporters.

His budget is much slimmer than Sadaat’s, but he welcomes visitors with the traditional tea and sweets. He too says he has no problem with security and that he campaigns in mosques and at public meetings to win support for his bid to secure one of the 19 seats on the provincial council.

"I am a graduate of a religious faculty and I could become a judge or a prosecutor," he said. "But when I saw that most of them take bribes, I decided I didn’t want to be a judge.

“I want to be on the provincial council so that I can campaign against corruption."

It's been tough going for Nezami, who has had to fund his campaign out of the income from his tailor's shop. He had to leave the business in the hands of apprentices during the day and return to work at night to help fulfil orders. But with little money coming in, he has been forced to limit himself to printing black-and-white posters, which cost him a total of 100 dollars.

Nezami would like more free airtime, and is critical of the Joint Electoral Management Body, JEMB, for limiting the media access available to candidates.

"Two minutes on TV or four minutes on radio is very little time, and means the candidates’ hands are tied in what they can tell people," he said.

Elsewhere, in one of the city's high-rise blocks, more than 100 people are waiting to listen to parliamentary candidate Sayed Mohammad Hussain Hussaini.

The black-bearded Islamic scholar talks simply and quietly, telling his audience that he felt it was his mission to stand because of the responsibility he felt towards people.

The 33-year-old, dressed in traditional Afghan long white shirt and trousers, told IWPR that a friend had let him use the office free of charge, and that most of those working on his campaign were also religious people - "reciters of the holy Koran".

He said he had encountered no security problems while pasting up posters, talking to people in the mosques, or in his campaign office.

Hussaini alleged that some government officials were interfering with the electoral process on behalf of particular candidates, a charge dismissed by Mohammad Ibrahim Ferozish, the local JEMB representative.

"If the government does not cheat in this election like it did in the one for the presidency, I will win," said Hussaini.

Another parliamentary candidate who appeared to be drawing plenty of attention is 26-year-old Qaida Afif. A crowd of people thronged the shop she is using as a campaign office as she presents her aims - to "defend women's rights, rebuild the war-ravaged country, and build democracy under the umbrella of an Islamic state".

She told IWPR she had seen no evidence of government officials interfering in the election, but that she had seen plenty of signs that candidates were offering bribe for votes.

"On many occasions, people have come to me too and asked for money, saying that they’d then vote for me. I don't accept that," she said.

Since she began her campaign, the cost of which is being met by her father and brother, Afif has not been bothered by security problems, although she had been threatened by phone twice.

"I think somebody was playing a trick on me. The caller was phoning from a public phone centre, so I didn’t take it seriously," she said.

Abdul Baseer Saeed and Mohammad Jawad Sharifzada are IWPR staff reporters in Kabul.