The EconomistMarch 14th 2020 Asia 291A
fghanistan waitedfive months for a
president and then two came along at
once. An election was held in September,
but the results were not announced until
last month. Although the electoral com-
mission said the incumbent, Ashraf Ghani,
had won, his main electoral rival, Abdullah
Abdullah, dismissed its tally as fraudulent
and declared himself the winner. On March
9th both men had themselves sworn in, in
competing inauguration ceremonies held
just metres apart in the capital, Kabul.
Afghans watched split-screen news
coverage of the events and wearily shook
their heads. Satirists seized on the farce.
The two could each rule for eight hours a
day, with a third shift going to the leader of
the Taliban insurgency, suggested Afghan
Onion, a parody site. Residents in one Ka-
bul neighbourhood reportedly held their
own spoof swearing-in. Yet for all the gal-
lows humour, there was unease. The
squabble conjures memories of the 1990s,
when warlords who are still on the political
stage fought for power. A salvo of rockets
that landed close to Mr Ghani’s ceremony,
without causing casualties, did not stem
the foreboding.
The election and subsequent dispute
have a familiar ring. In the previous vote, in
2014, Mr Ghani also defeated Dr Abdullah,
only to have him cry fraud. That time,
America ended the stand-off by persuading
Mr Ghani to create an important-sounding
job, chief executive, for Dr Abdullah. But
both ruled out a repeat of this awkward
power-sharing government before the lat-
est vote and, so far, American diplomats
have been unable to change their minds.
Donald Trump’s pointman for Afghani-
stan, Zalmay Khalilzad, spent the day be-
fore the inaugurations shuttling between
the opposing camps. Western countries
signalled support for Mr Ghani by sending
delegations to his swearing-in, but they
still would like him to find a way to include
Dr Abdullah. Yet it is rumoured that Dr Abd-
ullah has rejected an offer to name two-
fifths of cabinet posts and take a leading
role in peace talks with the Taliban, which
are supposed to start imminently.
Mike Pompeo, America’s secretary of
state, said he hoped for an inclusive gov-
ernment “which unifies the country and
prioritises peace”. “It is serious, but not ter-
minally so—having multiple poles of pow-
er is hardly new here,” says a diplomat in
Kabul. “Afghans will work it out. They’ll
haveto.It istheirproblemtofix.”
Thehorse-tradingdistractsfroma hard-
erandmoreimportanttaskfortheAfghan
politicalelite:bargainingwiththeTaliban.
Talksbetweenthemilitantsand Afghan
leadershad beendueto start onMarch
10th.ButtheTalibaninsistedthattheAf-
ghan government should release 5,000
prisonersfirst—somethingMrGhanihas
refusedtodo.OnMarch11th,however,he
announcedhewouldrelease1,500Taliban
detaineesinthecomingweeks.Eachfight-
erwouldhavetogivea writtenguarantee
hewouldnotreturntothebattlefield.If
talksprogress,MrGhanipromised,a fur-
ther 500 Talibanprisonerswouldbefreed
eachfortnight,uptoa totalof5,000.
TheTaliban immediatelyrejectedthe
offer.Perhapstheywerehopingfora better
onefromDrAbdullah. 7Two rival presidential candidates both
take the oath of office
Politics in Afghanistan
Twin peaks
L
ast montha judge in Mangaluru, in the
southern state of Karnataka, did some-
thing increasingly unusual in an Indian
court. Not only did he grant bail to 21 Mus-
lim men charged with joining a riot, he also
roundly condemned the police for fabricat-
ing evidence against them. They had failed
to establish a link between the accused and
any crime, he said. They had also failed to
register even a single case on behalf of mul-
tiple witnesses who claimed that it was the
police themselves who had shot dead two
people in the city in December during a
protest against controversial new citizen-ship rules. There appeared to have been “a
deliberate attempt to cover up police ex-
cesses”, he concluded. Two weeks later, in
much more typical fashion, the Supreme
Court struck down the ruling, sending the
men back to prison.
Since the Hindu nationalist govern-
ment of Narendra Modi changed the laws
on citizenship in a way that discriminated
against Muslims, at least 80 people have
died in related protests, including 53 in ri-
ots that engulfed parts of Delhi, the capital,
in February. And although it is Muslims,
both protesters and bystanders, who have
borne the brunt of the violence and vandal-
ism, the government, the agencies of the
state and much of the press have persisted
in blaming the victims.
In one of many such cases, for instance,
a court elsewhere in Karnataka rejected a
plea for bail by three students from Kash-
mir, charged with sedition for singing
“Long live Pakistan” in a video on Face-
book. Indian legal precedent defines sedi-
tion as the direct instigation of violence
against the state, yet the judge found it suf-
ficient that the students had “created un-
healthy atmosphere”. In Uttar Pradesh, the
most populous state, where police were re-
peatedly caught on film vandalising priv-
ate property during the protests, the state is
fining not the errant officers, but lawyers
and human-rights activists who have sup-
posedly damaged public property. The po-
lice even erected giant billboards with the
photos, names and addresses of several
dozen people from whom it is seeking
damages. The state’s highest court did or-
der a stop to the legally groundless public
shaming campaign, but the state govern-
ment, which happens to be run by Mr
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp), has ap-
pealed to the Supreme Court.
It is likely to get a sympathetic hearing.
During the riots in Delhi, it was only after
the high court ordered police to help evacu-DELHI
Muslim victims of rioting are bashed
by the police and courts, tooSectarianism in IndiaFirst the mob, then
the law
More menace than reassurance