Ashraf Ghani’s security men are nervous.

Most of the people on board the presidential candidate’s campaign helicopter on a day’s loan from the military have been told they are going to Bamiyan, a relatively peaceful province in central Afghanistan.

Instead, the pilots have headed south to an area where no other candidate has campaigned: Zabol.

“We are in the heartland of the Taliban,” Mr Ghani declares as his helicopter touches down in Qalat, the capital of the province near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan. “You know the governor here was unable to leave his compound for a year.”

The south – and the provinces of Zabol, Kandahar and Helmand – is where the turnout in Thursday’s election is likely to be lowest. The Pashtun areas are also where the war against the Taliban insurgency is raging. Nine districts are not under the control of Afghan government or Nato forces; many others are vulnerable to attack by a well-armed and nimble rebel force.

For those reasons diplomats in Kabul estimate that turnout across the south of the country at 40 per cent on election day, compared with about 60 per cent in the north. But some say that successful Taliban intimidation in the coming days – including threats to cut off the ink-stained fingers of voters – may prove that estimate optimistic.

The campaign stop in Zabol is a provocative one. Mr Ghani, trailing President Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah badly in the race for the presidency, wants to show that he is a national candidate who can campaign freely across the country. He, like many others, also wants to show that he is not cowed by the insurgency.

Zabol has 42 polling stations of a national total estimated to be about 6,500. What happens in areas like these on Thursday will have a big impact on the election and whether it is deemed to be legitimate. Mr Karzai, himself a Pashtun, would expect to draw support from the area and needs it to score a clear victory over his rivals and avoid having to enter a second round of voting.

“The critical issue is turnout in the Pashtun belt,” says one senior diplomat. He warns that if the vote goes to a run-off round in October it could come under renewed Taliban attack. “The insurgents may consider the first round as a dry run.”

In the past days, observers have become more confident that Mr Karzai could win outright in the first round through deals made with regional potentates. But some election officials warn that a poor turnout combined with a disappointing result for Mr Karzai could lead him to challenge the outcome on the grounds that the election has excluded a large chunk of his support base.

Much of south and central Afghanistan is a fortress of arid mountain ranges. Deep ravines shelter pockets of fertile cultivation. Small mudcaked homesteads crouch beneath the monumental landscape.

But in Qalat, the powdery dust is a few shades whiter. A desert outpost among the hilly outcrops, here the homesteads are poor and dwarfed by a windswept Afghan army barracks. Many of its people travel across the border to Pakistan to earn money. A few find jobs locally with an American contractor.

“It’s a dangerous place. The insurgents are here,” says Ahmad Wali Sarhadi, a student in Qalat.

After a three-day security operation to prepare for his visit about 400 people come to a mosque to hear a heavily guarded Mr Ghani speak. On arrival at the mosque, the former finance minister and World Bank official appeals to his audience’s religious sensibilities by bellowing “Allah Akbar” and striding purposefully forward in his white robes with arms upraised.

Once inside, he stresses Afghanistan’s sovereignty, peace and new jobs in his stump speech. He says international forces should be guests and not hosts. He also proposes that Bagram airbase, close to the capital Kabul, should be closed.

The more elderly first ranks of the audience clap enthusiastically and call out in support. But behind them the young men have a sullen, suspicious, even hunted look. “Taliban threats mean that only some of the people will vote. Most of the people will stay at home,” says Mr Sarhadi.

Once the speeches are over, the potential threat from insurgents means no one wants to hang around in Qalat.

Mr Ghani is quickly bundled into a cortege of 4×4s bristling with guns and sped to the nearby military base.

A palpable sense of relief fills the military helicopter as the town recedes in the distance. Mr Ghani folds his arms and prays to himself.

“He’s a brave man. He wants to show that he can campaign anywhere. I reckon about 80 per cent of the people in that mosque were Taliban,” says Atif Sediq, one of Mr Ghani’s advisers.

For Mr Ghani, the gamble may pay off even if it is unlikely to sweep him into the presidency.

“Everyone in that mosque will vote for me,” he says smiling.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/15d01924-8a90-11de-ad08-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

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