After 25 years of war and centuries of tribal-based feudalism, Afghanistan is holding its inaugural presidential election on Oct. 9.

During a rally Wednesday in Kabul's sports stadium -- a bullet-pockmarked place of public executions and dismemberment during the Taliban regime -- President Hamid Karzai, who is running for election, told the crowd they were laying the "first bricks in a wall of democracy."

But there are some harrowing obstacles in the way of that construction project, which has been delayed twice since June and resulted in parliamentary elections being moved to next year.

In the southern and eastern provinces, U.S. and Afghan forces are battling the resurgent Taliban, who were pushed from power in the November 2001 following a U.S. invasion triggered by the 9/11 terror attacks on New York and Washington.

As well, according to a report released in September by Human Rights Watch (HRW), while the Taliban might be seen as the most menacing factor by the West, Afghans tell the New York-based group that warlords -- called jangsalaran in the Dari and Pashto languages -- are the biggest problem.

One of the worst such warlords, Rashid Dostum, an Uzbek, is among those 18 people running for a five-year term as Afghanistan's president. He's been known to have people chained between tanks and ripped apart.

While there is an ongoing insurgency against the government of President Hamid Karzai, who is seeking election to his post, the warlords are also fighting among themselves for power.

Despite these troubles, Jean Arnault, the special envoy of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, has claimed whoever wins the election will genuinely represent the Afghan people.

"Well, this is called localitis," Brad Adams, Asia director for HRW, told CTV.ca. "Sometimes people lose their perspective, particularly when you are part of the machinery.

"Put it this way: Jean Arnault is French. If this election took place in France, could he genuinely say the winner would represent the French people?"

Many difficulties

There are some serious problems with the election process besides attempts by militants at intimidation, assassination and sabotage.

For example, the convoy carrying Ahmed Zia Massoud, Karzai's running-mate, was attacked Wednesday, leaving one dead and five wounded. Massoud wasn't harmed.

The number of registered voters is now 10.5 million (there are an estimated 23 to 27 million Afghans plus another estimated 900,000 in refugee camps outside the country).

But everyone agrees that number is inflated. Some people have registered multiple times, often in the mistaken belief their voter registration card would entitle them to food rations.

"The non-governmental organization Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) noted in a recent report, the number of registered voters in several provinces is significantly larger than the estimated population of known eligible voters," HRW's report said.

This does not seem to bother Karzai. "People are enthusiastic, and they want to have cards. It doesn't bother me," he told reporters at a news conference with U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in August. "If they want to vote twice, they're welcome."

He later noted that every voter's finger will be marked with indelible ink to prevent them from voting twice.

Afghanistan is a very conservative country, and many oppose granting women the right to vote. In some southern provinces, only 10 per cent of women are estimated to be registered to vote.

There are fears that some warlords will control the voting process and order people in their areas to support a particular candidate.

In fact, many political parties are simply an extension of militias, even though Afghan law prohibits parties from having their own militias.

While Afghanistan's Joint Election Management Board has received complaints about warlords like Dostum and their links to militias, "political concerns (if not outright fear of the candidates on the part of JEMB officials) seem to have inhibited them," HRW said.

One problem is that the U.S. government is working with some of the warlords who are resisting the central government in Kabul, the capital city. In fact, some of those warlords derisively refer to Karzai as the "mayor of Kabul."

Another problem is that despite a heavy NATO presence in Kabul (Canadian troops have played an important role there), the security situation in the wider countryside is dire. That has let to a shortage of independent election monitors.

"They're so scared that we hear now that poll workers are political party workers of the local power brokers," Adams said.

So you go up to cast what you think is your secret ballot, "and the person handing you your ballot is someone who you know works for General So-and-so. It's extremely discouraging," he said.

"It's so bad, it's so problematic, that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the EU (European Union) have both decided not to send full observation delegations because minimal conditions have not been met," Adams added.

Afghanistan's future

Vice President Dick Cheney and conservative columnist David Brooks of the New York Times have both talked or written recently about El Salvador, which first held elections in 1982 during a viciously-fought civil war.

It eventually evolved into a relatively peaceful and stable country.

"Of course the situation in El Salvador is not easily comparable to the situations in Afghanistan or Iraq. On the other hand, over the past 30-odd years, democracy has spread at the rate of one and a half nations per year. It has spread among violence-racked nations and to 18 that are desperately poor. And it has spread not only because it inspires, but also because it works," Brooks wrote.

"I didn't follow their logic," Adams said. One could say it's hopeful people are fighting for democracy, "but you have to balance that against the reality on the ground: Who has guns, what their motives are and how powerful they are."

That latter part is key.

"It's as unclear now, as it was a year or two years ago, as to where Afghanistan is going," Adams said, adding much of it depends on the warlords.

Some of them are classic warlords while others are more like local politicians.

Many have their own independent financial base now, primarily through opium production, he said.

A recent book, Imperial Hubris, written by a CIA analyst, doesn't give the Karzai government -- or any non-Islamic government -- much chance of surviving in the long run. For one thing, it notes the only people really doing any fighting are Islamic militants.

"It depends what you think the warlords are doing now. Are they being co-opted by Karzai and the United States, are they in a stand-off with Karzai? Or are they simply laying back, saying, 'it doesn't matter who the president is because the president doesn't have much power,' and waiting it out?" Adams said.

"There's reason to believe the latter, that historically, they've done that."

And when the international community loses interest, if the centre isn't strong, a national government might not last very long, Adams said.

"You're not faced with lots of great choices in Afghanistan right now."