Saturday, October 15, 2005
Afghans reject former Taliban leaders in polls
Gurinder Randhawa, Indo-Asian News Service
Kabul, October 15, 2005
As votes are counted in Afghanistan's parliamentary polls, the people's emphatic rejection of the fundamentalist Taliban ideology has become clear.
Afghan voters rejected outright the former Taliban leaders and declared their preference for the ballot against the bullet. Former Taliban foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil heads the list of ex-Taliban men who lost at the hustings. Muttawakil had tried his luck from Kandahar, which had served as the Taliban capital during their seven-year rule.
The other prominent ex-Taliban losers include Maulvi Qlamuddin, the Taliban minister for promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, Abdul Hakim Munib, Taliban deputy trade minister and Mullah Abdul Samad Khaksar, the Taliban intelligence chief.
All these former Taliban heavyweights broke ranks with the segments of Taliban still waging war against the US-supported Karzai government and tried their luck in the Sep 18 elections to get into the mainstream of Afghan polity.
Karzai, who had induced these leaders away from the Taliban, seems to have succeeded in throwing them out of mainstream politics. Karzai declared the "successful holding of elections as a crushing defeat of the militants".
The only Taliban renegade to have been elected and that too with a big margin, is former guerrilla commander Mullah Abdul Salam 'Rocketi' in Zabul province, which is still one of the hotbeds of terrorist violence.
He acquired the nickname 'Rocketi' for his expertise in handling all types of rockets, bombs, grenades in jihad against Russians and also during the fundamentalist Taliban regime.
© HT Media Ltd. 2005.