A sea of blue washed over Kabul’s Ghazi Stadium, site of the infamous public executions in the Taliban era, Monday as Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah addressed a massive rally on the final day of campaigning before the Aug. 20 poll.

Thousands of his supporters at the stadium waved placards and handed out flyers, the men dressed in blue T-shirts and caps, the women outside the stadium sporting flashy, sky-blue veils.

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On Sunday night, Afghan President Hamid Karzai finally joined his main rivals for a televised debate on the state-run national television. The incumbent, who is leading in the polls, had boycotted an earlier debate on a private TV station, drawing sharp critiques from his rivals, including Abdullah and former Afghan finance minister, Ashraf Ghani.

This is Afghanistan’s second round of elections since the 2001 fall of the Taliban and the first Afghan-led election to take place in more than 30 years. The last round of elections, the 2004 presidential election and the 2005 parliamentary polls, were jointly conducted by UN and Afghan officials.

But already, Afghans display both a flair for the razzmatazz surrounding presidential campaign trails and cynicism over its extravagant, flashier moments.

“Karzai and his associates, such as Abdullah Abdullah, campaign by spending dollars and if they don’t spend dollars, no one will come for their rallies,” said Afifa Maroof, Bashardost’s second vice-presidential candidate as she fanned herself inside the broiling tent under a scorching noonday sun. “Here, we have people from all groups Pashtun, Hazara, Uzbek,” she lists Afghanistan’s major ethnic groups, “and they are spending their money out of their own pockets.”

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Wooing the political bosses

Another troubling trend on the campaign trail has been Karzai’s penchant for striking up deals with some of Afghanistan’s most unsavoury political figures. Karzai’s choice of the deeply reviled Marshal Qasim Fahim for his first vice-presidential pick raised eyebrows not the least because of Fahim’s brutal human rights record during the early 1990s’ civil war, but also because Karzai himself has been a victim of Fahim’s muscular form of justice during the internecine war years.

But in Afghanistan, securing the patronage of political bosses is considered essential for winning the vote, according to Afghan political experts. Minor details such as personal antipathy, past threats and differing ideologies are of scant consequence.

Few of the former mujahid leaders are as controversial as Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, a whisky-drinking, former Communist Uzbek warlord. Accusations by several human rights organisations of abuse of Taliban prisoners shortly after the 2001 US invasion has been a sore spot in US administrative circles.

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The United Nations and the United States have expressed concern at the prospect that Dostum could return to a position in government in exchange for delivering votes to Karzai.