Word: ethnicity
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...election day got underway in the north, the streets were calm in Mazar-i-Sharif, a largely ethnic Tajik city. At a girls school that had been turned into a voting station, Assadullah, 52, casually checked incoming voters on polling day Thursday. The Tajik security guard himself was a partisan of Abdullah Abdullah. In a way, he was following orders. Assadullah had once fought under Mohammad Atta, an ex-mujahideen commander who now governs the province and who has thrown his support behind Abdullah. Meanwhile, Palwasha, 19, a beaming first-time voter, giggled as she declined a request to reveal...
...merits. A slight, shy 24-year-old, Kosar has just returned from three years of studying in a Bangalore university, on a scholarship from the Indian government. At age 2, Kosar lost his father in the war against the Soviets. His mother, a member of the Hazara ethnic group heavily persecuted by the Taliban regime, saw her sons' education as the family's ticket out of desperation. Kosar thought his fluent English and new bachelor's degree in human resources and management would guarantee him a good job in a country crying out for professionals. When he got an interview...
...from the capital of Colombo, remained well within the battlegrounds of the civil war between the predominantly Sinhalese government and the separatist Tamil Tigers. It was not until April 2008 that the military gained full control of the shrine; the Tigers, who demanded a separate state for ethnic Tamils on the island nation, were finally crushed in May 2009. (See pictures from inside Sri Lanka's rebel-held territory...
Another plank of his agenda is an end to the political horsetrading that continues to undermine Afghan institutions. In the run-up to elections, Karzai heavy-handedly co-opted potential rivals with promises of ministerial posts and even the redrawing of provincial borders in favor of minority ethnic groups. His leading challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, has been accused of giving jobs to fellow Tajiks while serving as foreign minister. (Read a story about Abdullah Abdullah, the man who would beat Karzai...
Bashardost believes that mounting disgust with warlord-dominated patronage networks has led Afghans to begin to shift away from traditional ethnic-tribal politics toward issues of substance like jobs and education. He says that the fact that he has never fought in a war or joined a faction makes him more appealing to disillusioned voters. "You can't find another candidate who thinks about all the national interests of the Afghan people more than Ramazan Bashardost," he says, lapsing into the third-person as is his habit. Few, however, share his assessment of the way Afghan politics works...