According to Afghanistan's constitution, the councils' only duty is to select two-thirds of the members of the Meshrano Jirga, or House of Elders, one of two houses of parliament.
However, it is widely expected that the councils will evolve into bodies that impose local taxes and provide local services, making them a prize worth fighting over for warlords.
From left, Maryam Shahab, Zuhal Wardak, Mohammed Aghar Zakhiel, Nasima Sadat and Abdul Razaq Loqman attend a class on democracy.
(Photos N.c. Aizenman -- The Washington Post)
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Beginning in late 2001, Karzai appointed many former militia leaders to district posts to gain their support for his interim government. Now, despite an ambitious program to disarm warlords across the country, officials worry that their positions could give them added influence over the elections.
"The warlords still have power, weapons and ammunition. They can scare people into voting for whomever they choose," said A. Malek Sediqi, an official at the Interior Affairs Ministry. "If there is a delay and the government can appoint district chiefs who are professional and don't belong to any factions, then we could have much better elections."
Another issue is whether the voting system chosen by Karzai and his cabinet should be changed to make it easier for political parties to gain power. The current system requires voters to choose only one candidate even if their district is to be represented by several people. Since the most popular candidates tend to vacuum up votes, analysts said, the remaining winners may enter office with minimal support and mandate.
"You have to really discipline your voters to spread their votes among your candidates," noted Peter Dimitroff, Afghanistan country director for the National Democratic Institute. "If you field too many candidates, you risk diluting your vote and having all of them lose. If you run too few candidates, you lose out on potential seats that you could have won."
Most parliamentary democracies use some variation of a party list system, in which voters can cast their vote for a political party, which fields a list of candidates. The more votes a party receives, the more of its candidates win office. But Karzai, who ran as an independent, favored the single-vote system because of its inhibiting effect on political parties, Ludin said. He noted that Afghanistan has a bitter history of party skirmishing that from the 1970s to the 1990s led to a series of violent or irregular regime changes and a devastating civil war.
Karzai worried that using a party list system "would make it seem like political parties were again taking control and basically depriving people of the right to vote for the individuals they want," Ludin said.
However, Dimitroff warned that a parliament without strong parties could prove impossible for the president to work with. "For every legislative initiative he wants to pass, President Karzai would have to cut countless deals with any number of actors," he said. "Every piece of legislation will be a tough slog."
Last month, leaders of 35 political parties called on Karzai to change the voting system to party list. The factions that caused problems in the past "weren't parties," said Zulfiqar Khan Omid, head of the Labor and Development Party. "They were soldier groups, and they did awful things that made people afraid of parties. Now we need to explain to people that political parties are the backbone of democratic societies."
Ludin said Karzai would consider changing the voting system if Afghan members of the Joint Election Management Body, an Afghan-U.N. group, recommended it. In the meantime, the National Democratic Institute is trying to prepare political parties for the elections by offering seminars on basic democratic principles.
In Pashtana Ahadi Wardak's class, one of the instructors finally settled on a response to her contention that the warlords would prevent fair elections.
"It's true that we have such problems," Hamid Dost Zada said. "But after 25 years of war, step by step it's getting better. If citizens know their responsibilities, they will be active. And if they are active, we will all reach our goals."
Wardak gave a dubious sigh and sat down.
