Word: tajiks
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...shouldn't be entirely written off. It is worth remembering a few of his assets: he is a Pashtun from the respected Popalzai tribe, credentials that may assist him in trying to negotiate with the predominantly Pashtun Taliban. (These recent elections reopened old schisms between the Pashtuns and the Tajiks, and if Abdullah, who is widely perceived as a Tajik leader, were to somehow win the runoff, the Taliban's ranks would almost certainly be swelled by masses of angry young Pashtuns...
...struggle over the poll also highlights the country's age-old ethnic divide. In the August poll, Abdullah won a clear majority of the Tajik vote in the north; Karzai the Pashtun vote in the south. Abdullah's ties to the late warrior-poet, Ahmed Shah Masood, killed by al-Qaeda a few days before 9/11, help Abdullah's support in the north because Tajiks revere Masood as an exemplary leader who single-handedly held off the Soviets and the Taliban. On the other hand, Abdullah's Masood connection is a turnoff to many Pashtun tribesmen, who viewed Masood...
...accept defeat will be hard: there have been widespread allegations of fraud. If the former Foreign Minister contests the results in the street - in the manner of Iran's Mir-Hossein Mousavi - that could set off an ethnic conflict between Karzai's Pashtun base and his rival's Tajik following (Abdullah's father is Pashtun, his mother Tajik). "The challenge is to ensure that the election doesn't end up dividing the country," says a U.S. official familiar with Afghan policy. (Check out a profile of Dr. Abdullah Abdullah...
...ahead, but it appears unlikely he'll carry the 50% of the vote plus one needed to avoid a runoff in October. Should a runoff happen, analysts agree the country will retreat to ethnic and regional divisions, with the majority of Pashtuns across the south backing Karzai, and Tajiks, the second largest ethnic group, rallying in the north behind Abdullah, the son of a Pashtun father and Tajik mother. Abdullah is also more closely identified with the Northern Alliance, which ousted the Taliban - a largely Pashtun movement - from power in late 2001. (Read about the Taliban threat to disrupt...
...most Pashtuns, there is only one acceptable outcome. Gholam Mohammad, 24, a taxi driver in the capital who voted for Karzai, says Afghanistan's leaders have historically been Pashtuns like him, a tradition that should never change. Still, he approves of Karzai's choices of Mohammad Fahim, a Tajik, and Karim Khalili, a Hazara, as his two Vice Presidents, a choice he thinks will help ensure some cohesion among the different groups around the country. And what if Karzai somehow lost and a non-Pashtun took his place? "It would not be good," says Mohammad...