This concurs with what many ordinary Afghans seem to be believe: that the elections will not be won in the polling booths but in secret talks between the various contenders. In particular, there are rumors that many former mujahedin, including Pashtun, are unhappy with Karzai. Instead, they would be considering supporting the Afghan-Tajik Qanuni – if the price he is offering them is deemed enough.

Qanuni registered as a candidate at the last minute at the end of July, after Karzai decided to drop his Vice-President, the powerful Tajik defense minister Mohammed Fahim, in favor of Ahmad Zia Massoud, a brother of the legendary Ahmad Shah Massoud who was murdered on September 9, 2001, by Al-Qaeda-linked extremists. But not all agree with this analysis. Former President Burhanuddin Rabbani told the Dubai-based Khaleej Times in August that “The commanders have their own interests and they will definitely consider that before supporting Mr. Qanuni.”

Rabbani himself certainly has such interests. As the father-in-law of Ahmad Zia Massoud, he supports Karzai. However, most Tajiks in Kabul at least seem to support their co-ethnic Qanuni.

After the removal of the Tajik governor of Herat province, Ismail Khan, earlier this month, Qanuni is also expected to make big gains in this region, where Karzai never was very popular. Ismail Khan’s removal sparked violent rioting in Herat that had to be subdued by the Afghan National Army and American troops, and led to the temporary evacuation of the UN from the town. Opponents of Khan, as well as international observers, believe the violence was instigated by Khan, who declined to come to Kabul as the new minister of mines and industry but decided to stay in Herat as “a private citizen” – a private citizen with a private militia of several thousand men.

The threat of further violence by warlords such as Khan is one reason why most foreign observers apart from ANFREL decided against officially monitoring the elections. “Current and anticipated conditions in Afghanistan are significantly below those regarded by the OSCE as the minimal necessary for any meaningful election observation,” reads an OSCE assessment that was obtained by the BBC. Human Rights Watch, in a report released on September 28, called the threat of warlords intimidating voters the biggest problem in the upcoming elections – bigger than the other threat, which comes from Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and affiliated radicals such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

The Taliban have vowed to disrupt the elections and on September 16 tried to shoot down Karzai’s helicopter when the President was on his way to Gardez on a campaigning trip. Three people have been arrested for the attack, which was the most serious attempt on Karzai’s life in two years. Even Kabul is not considered safe at the moment. “I take the view that the security situation in Kabul is volatile,” says Jennifer Harbison, South Asia Analyst with the London-based Control Risks Group. And she expects more deadly attacks in Kabul such as the August bombing of DynCorp, the U.S. security firm providing Karzai with bodyguards, which left ten dead. “NGOs, donor agencies, guesthouses, restaurants are likely to attract [terrorist] attention,” Harbison believes.

Some, such as the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, an independent research organization, believe it would have been better to postpone the elections. Others disagree. “Afghanistan is insecure anyway,” says Nick Downie of the Afghanistan NGO Security Office – and likely to remain so in the foreseeable future. And elections are necessary to show the country has made progress on the way to democracy. “Whether they are legitimate or not isn’t of much concern,” says Downie.

There certainly appear to be some problems with voter registration; in Kabul some boys of 14 or 15 years old have managed to receive voting cards. According to the ANFREL observer, this is mainly a cultural issue: “In Islam, you are old enough to marry when you are 14 or 15.” Getting voter registration at that age would only seem “normal” then. Opposition candidates have further claimed Karzai is getting greater access to state-run media and demanded he resign from his post prior to the elections to give all candidates an equal chance. But Karzai called demands for his resignation “unconstitutional.”