Just the man to win an Afghan election: Prospect

James Carville will advice Ashraf Ghani

Foreign Policy (FP) today launched a AfPak Channel where they offer a preview of the Afghan election. They report that with just two weeks to go “what had been a yawn of a race is suddenly a pulse-pumping sprint for the finish, with no clear winner in sight. What rocked Karzai’s formerly sturdy campaign boat?” Instead of focusing on Hamid Karzai, we should instead pay attention to a trio of contenders – and be “prepared for the unexpected.”

Barely has the world recovered from one dubious election in a nation vital to global security than another is on the cards. But while Iran paid for its dodgy poll, Afghanistan’s tab is being picked up by the US and Britain. Afghans vote on 20th August, against a backdrop of bloodshed and worries that rigging will make a mockery of the £16m being offered by DfID for fair elections. 

Obama worries that overt US support will harm opposition candidates. But US aid has arrived nonetheless, in the form of James Carville, the fiery political consultant who engineered Bill Clinton’s 1992 election win, and who is now adviser to Afghan presidential candidate (and Prospect contributor) Ashraf Ghani. Carville once described his strategy as “when your opponent is drowning, throw the son of a bitch an anvil.” But Ghani has his own plans. “I aim to persuade more warlords to support Karzai,” he said, “it’s getting expensive for him to keep them all on board.”

This diary item appeared in the August edition of Prospect

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The Prospect/YouGov poll: Britain’s fear of unrest & support for civic service

As part of the research for our forthcoming cover story on the case for a national civic service in Britain, Prospect and YouGov polled over 2,000 people in England, Scotland and Wales to explore their hopes and fears for the recession, and their feelings towards a compulsory national civic service. You can now read a detailed analysis of the results on our website, and let us know your own thoughts below.

The pie chart, above left, represents one of the more dramatic findings. In answer to the question “will there be civil unrest in Britain?, 31 per cent (light red) said they believed this was likely to happen, and 6 per cent (dark red) said they believed it was certain to happen; 39 per cent (light blue) said it was likely not to happen, and 12 per cent (dark blue) that it was certain not to happen. 12 per cent (grey) responded that they “did not know.” That’s 37 per cent—over a third—of people across Britain thinking unrest is certain or likely this year; a finding that chimes uneasily with today’s Guardian report that the police are predicting a potential “Summer of rage” here, with a return to the kind of scenes last seen in the 1980s.

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