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With Sebghatullah Mujaddedi, another of the historic leaders of the mujahedin parties, which fought the Soviet occupation (1979-89), has died. Mujaddedi belonged to a famous family of Sufi leaders and for this spiritual position, he was widely known simply as with the honorific ‘Hazrat Saheb’ in Afghanistan. Having been severely ill for some time, Mujaddedi died in Kabul on 11 February 2019. It was four days before the 30th anniversary of the Soviet withdrawal, an event which paved the way for his return home – but only another three years later. AAN’s co-director and senior analyst Thomas Ruttig looks back at his life (with input from AAN’s team in Kabul).

His greatest hour

28 April 1992 was possibly Hazrat Saheb (1) Sebghatullah Mujaddedi’s day of fame. On that day, he entered the Afghan capital Kabul with his 20-strong cabinet in a large convoy of vehicles. They had driven from Peshawar and he was taking over as Afghanistan’s interim head of state. Mujaddedi himself, as The New York Times reported, rode in an “an ivory white Mercedes” and was greeted “by restrained public jubilation [and] celebratory gunfire from the guerrillas controlling the capital.”

Describing the handover ceremony, the Times went on to report that Mujaddedi disembarked from his German-made cabriolet 

… at a large house that had once belonged to the Committee for Solidarity and Friendship under the old Communist Government. Around his car, hundreds of battle-dressed fighters struggled to control rapidly mushrooming crowds of Kabul residents screaming “Allahu Akbar!” – “God is Great!”

Several members of the old government escorted the President into the house, including the Foreign Minister, Abdul Wakil, and the commanding general of the Kabul garrison, Nabi Az[e]mi. Mr. Mojadedi walked briskly into the house followed by a black-bearded military aide, his uniform lathered in gold braid and campaign ribbons. Outside the gates, guerrillas shattered the silence firing thousands of rounds into the sky from their assault rifles. [… M]embers of the old Government, including the former Prime Minister, the leaders of the old Senate and House of Representatives, and the chief justice of the Supreme Court, handed power to Mr. Mojadedi [sic] in a formal ceremony at the Foreign Ministry. (…)

The Times reported him as “[b]athed in the glare of television lights and surrounded by guerrilla bodyguards and crowds of aides who had worked with him in his exile in Pakistan” as he addressed the small diplomatic corps, telling them that he and ‘his brothers’  had “received power from the Kabul regime and removed the Kabul regime from power and established an Islamic Government.” He went on: “One of the main things we can do is try to bring peace in Kabul and Afghanistan so that the people no longer have war.”

For Mujaddedi, scion of a powerful religious family, who as we will see suffered terribly in the regime which took power in the 1978 coup, this was his greatest hour. Peace, however, did not come then, and ever after to this very day.

Sufi and religious reformer family background 

Sebghatullah Mujaddedi came from a famous family of Naqshbandi Sufi leaders. They trace their origins back to Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi, known as mujadded-e alf-e thani (Renewer of the Second Millenium), a religious reformer (2) born in Kabul province in 1564 who established a religious centre, Fathgarh, in Sirhind, in today’s Indian part of Punjab. Further back, they trace their roots to Omar Ibn al-Khattab, the second caliph of Islam.

The family came back to Afghanistan in the early nineteenth century. They established a madrasa and khanaqa (Sufi lodge) in Shor Bazar, a part of Kabul’s old city on the southern bank of Kabul River (‘shor’ meaning crowded or noisy), which was largely destroyed during the war. Therefore, their respective leaders were each known as the Hazrat of Shor Bazar. The family later branched out, most importantly to Herat city and to Ghazni province – where it established the Nur al-Madares madrassa in Andar district, still one of the most prestigious in the country. 

During the reign of Amanullah (1919-29), the family took an openly political role. After initially supporting Amanullah’s anti-British and pro-independence course, with one of its members, Muhammad Ibrahim, serving as justice minister between 1919 and 1924, the family went into opposition when the amir-turned-king started his modernisation programme. It was during this time of upheaval that Sebghatullah Mujaddedi was born, in Kabul (in 1926, according to the official biography published by his party although most other sources in recent obituaries – for example here – have given 1925). 

Three years later, in 1928, during Amanullah’s second Loya Jirga the Mujaddedis collected 400 signatures that called the King’s reforms ‘anti-Islamic’, an act which led to a tribal uprising andrevolts in the Tajik northand, finally, to Amanullah’s fall from power a year later, in 1929.

After that, the family’s influence in the court soared further; Fazl Omar Mujaddedi – known as Nur ul-Mashayekh (The Light of the Sheikhs) and Sebghatullah Mujaddedi’s grandfather – and Fazl Ahmad Mujaddedi – son-in-law of the Nur ul-Mashayekh – were both appointed justice ministers (1929-32 and 1932-36, respectively). The clergy, including the Mujaddedis, also regained their influence over the education system; it had been curbed by Amanullah. This meant the young Mujaddedi grew up as a member of Kabul’s elite. He graduated from Habibia High School in Kabul, and also gaining private religious education and then travelled to Egypt to study sharia law from al-Azhar in Cairo, graduating in 1952 and returning home that year. 

From religious to political leader

Sebghatullah Mujaddedi entered the political stage in Afghanistan in his early thirties. A short period of more political openness under Prime Minister Shah Mahmud had just ended. According to his official biography, he refused to take a government position but started to teach at Kabul University’s sharia faculty, the Institutes of Teacher Training and Arabic Studies, and at various Kabul high schools. As the same biography underlined, his position was that

… [f]rom the start of the second half of the twentieth century, the political, religious and ideological leadership of the Afghan society demanded a rather new approach [namely] against [the] infiltration of the atheistic communism [which] was strongly geared against Islam and the Muslim lands, following the Second World War.

In 1959, Mujaddedi was imprisoned for five years by the government of Prime Minister Muhammad Daud (under King Muhammad Zaher Shah), according to most sources (including Ludwig Adamec’s famous Who’s Who in Afghanistan) for campaigning against a planned visit of Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchov in 1959 to Kabul or even for allegedly plotting to assassinate him. Some detail in this narrative, however, does not make sense. Khrushchov, accompanying Soviet head of state Nikolai Bulganin, had actually visited Kabul four years earlier, in December 1955. (3) The only high-ranking Soviet visitor in this period was Soviet then head of state Kliment Voroshilov, the previous year, on 1 October 1958. In May 1959, Daud did visit Moscow where he signed an agreement on the expansion of Soviet-Afghan economic and technical cooperation. As a result of this agreement, more Soviet technicians came to Afghanistan, helping in the construction of the Kushka-Herat-Kandahar highway and the reconstruction of the Kabul airport. More significantly, earlier that year, Daud had ordered the ban of the face veil for women. All this enraged Afghanistan’s religious establishment and a wave of protests followed. It surely was Mujaddedi’s involvement in these protests – which, in Kabul, were brutally beaten back by a police force trained and equipped by West Germany, using, among other means, electrically-charged batons – that landed Mujaddedi in jail. There, he said, he was mistreated, resulting in chronic illness.

Mujaddedi was released in 1964, after King Zaher – so far more or less a token ruler while real power rested with the dominant Musaheban family (4) – to which Mahmud and Daud belonged. The king initiated a new, more liberal constitution that gave more political freedoms and led to the establishment of semi-official political groups and to the freeing of political prisoners. Mujaddedi left the country for a year. He went to Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Upon his return to Afghanistan, he found himself banned from teaching for five years. Members of the illegal Islamist movement of the Jawanan-e Musalman (Muslim Youth), established in 1969, inspired by and possibly a branch of the Egypt-centred Muslim Brotherhood and including students such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, offered him the leadership of the organisation. (5) But he declined, and instead founded his own one, Jamiat-e Ulema-ye Muhammadi (Association of the Muhammedan Clergy) in 1972. Its dual religious-political character made it difficult for the government to suppress. Mujaddedi was also the first Afghan to translate Egyptian Islamist ideologue Sayyed Qutb’s book Milestones into Dari which became a major source of insipation for the Afghan Islamist movement.

In July 1973, Daud ousted his cousin from power, toppling the monarchy in a coup d’état in a coalition with leftist military officers linked to the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) and bringing about a republican order. Mujaddedi happened to be at a conference in Saudi Arabia. From there, he did not go home but went to Denmark, where he founded and headed a large Islamic centre and mosque in Copenhagen, with branches including in Oslo, Norway. He stayed in Denmark from 1974 to 1978. 

In that year, the PDPA took over in another coup d’état and Mujaddedi fled to Pakistan, where he founded the Jabha-ye Melli bara-ye Nejat-e Afghanistan (National Front for Afghanistan’s Liberation, usually called the ANLF in English). (6). It was originally intended to be umbrella organisation for the then five main Sunni factions – or ‘tanzims’ in Dari and Pashto – under Mujaddedi’s lead, but – as on many later occasions – disunity prevailed and the ANLF became just a sixth faction (with Sayyaf’s Ettehad-e Islami created in 1982 making a seventh).

In January 1979, the Khalqi regime rounded up almost a hundred of Mujaddedi’s male relations who had remained in Afghanistan and likely had them executed – what happened to them exactly has never come to light. Among the disappeared was Sebghatullah’s uncle, Muhammad Ibrahim Mujaddedi, then the head of the family and known as Zia ul-Mashayekh. (His father, Muhammad Massum Mujaddedi, also known as Rasul Agha Jan and later as Mian Jan, had died earlier, in 1971 in Lahore.) In March that year, Sebghatullah Mujaddedi called for a jihad against the Kabul regime. 

It was during this period that the Ghazni branch of the Mujaddedi family, which retained control over Nur ul-Madares, parted ways with Sebghatullah. They mainly joined the Mansur faction of Harakat-e Inqelab-e Islami which later, under the name of Khuddam ul-Forqan, remained an organisationally separate subgroup of the Taleban (see this AAN paper for more background). (Member of the current Taleban negotiating delegation, Suhail Shahin, belonged to this group, as well as several so-called reconciled Taleban residing in Kabul. Its leader Muhammad Amin Mujaddedi lives in Pakistan.

Mujaddedi’s was the smallest of the mujahedin factions. Jebha-ye Melli, which drew on the Naqshbandi Sufi order for recruits, advocated what Adamec called “the establishment of a traditional Islamic state with a parliamentary democracy.” It was seen at the time as ideologically ‘moderate’, compared to the Islamist factions of Jamiat, Ettehad and both Hezb-e Islamis, of Hekmatyar and of Yunes Khales. Among its more famous members (or at least future famous members) was a young Hamed Karzai. He ran ‘foreign affairs’ for the faction and often acted as English translator for various mujahedin leaders during the jihad (see this AAN dispatch).

[Amended 13 Feb, 10pm Kabul time: It is also remarkable that the Jabha’s fighters seemed to have behaved relatively positively during the jihad. Although the fact that it was the smallest group among the big ones might have contributed to this, in any case, there are no reports in files we know that accused them of any atrocities.]

It was only after the signing of the Geneva Accords in 1988 which led to the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Afghanistan between May 1988 and February 1989, that the mujahedin tanzims started to establish a joint government-in-exile. In the first such administration, established on 9 February 1988 with Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai (from Sayyaf’s Ettehad) as Prime Minister, the ANLF held two posts (as did each tanzim): Mujaddedi’s son Zabihullah (7) was deputy prime minister and the party also held the ministry of planning. In the next one, formed on 28 February 1989 in Rawalpindi after the Soviet withdrawal had been finalised – the so-called Afghan Islamic Interim Government (AIG), Mujaddedi was elected its head by 450 delegates from most mujahedin parties. At least ten tanzim leaders, including all the well-known ones, stood, and Mujaddedi just came ahead of Sayyaf by one vote. (Sayyaf then became prime minister.) 

Despite all elaborate procedures, also this government-in-exile came to nothing, as the Najibullah government unexpectedly survived the Soviet withdrawal – but not the cut of financial and military aid by Russian president Boris Yeltsin in 1992. This triggered a bloodless internal coup of mid-April 1992 on 15 April against  President Dr Najibullah. His First Vice President, Abdul Rahim Hatef, a Kandahari non-party member, took over as head of state. But the real power – if one could still called it that – were with dissidents from his own party, led by Foreign Minister Abdul Wakil, and the commander of the Kabul garrison, General Muhammad Nabi Azemi. The PDPA/Watan dissidents rushed to embrace the mujahedin, and many of the military leaders were absorbed by their factions. The civilians mostly ended up in exile.

The mujahedin take power

Four days before Mujaddedi’s convoy triumphantly entered Kabul, on 24 April 1992, the leaders of the mujahedin parties, while still in Pakistan, had agreed upon a new plan for the transfer of power from the Kabul government. This was the so-called Peshawar Accord. They envisioned three stages. In a first one, a 50-member Islamic Jihad Council (IJC) for a two-month interim period. Mujaddedi was the leader of the smallest of the seven main Sunni mujahedin factions known as the Peshawar Seven (after the place where they had their headquarters). He was elected chairman of the ICJ by the other members. 

The council consisted of representatives of the Peshawar Seven. However, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of Hezb-e Islami did not agree to the accord, and his people – including Abdul Sabur Farid who had been nominated prime minister – refused to take their seats in the council. The main Shia factions, Hezb-e Wahdat-e Islami and Harakat-e Islami were never invited to join the council in the first place.

The plan was for the Mujaddedi-headed Islamic Jihad Council two-month interim administration would be followed by a four-months’ interim government as stage two. It was to be headed by Professor Borhanuddin Rabbani of Jamiat-e Islami, and, four months after that, by an interim government chosen by a shura. In stage three, the interim government was to rule for eighteen more months after which elections would be held. The country was also officially renamed the Islamic State of Afghanistan (Daulat-e Islami-ye Afghanistan) or the ISA.

One day after Mujaddedi’s arrival in Kabul, he declared an amnesty for all members of the former Afghan government, with the exception of Najibullah. About him, Mujaddedi announced, “the Afghan people” would take a decision. Najibullah, meanwhile, was sheltering in a United Nations compound in Kabul after a UN-sponsored handover of power earlier in April 1992 had failed. He unsuccessfully tried to leave the country, but was held up by fighters of his erstwhile ally General Abdul Rashid Dostum who had taken over Kabul airport and switched sides. Grateful for this ‘service’, Mujaddedi confirmed the general’s rank awarded to Dostum by the Najib government and even compared him to Khaled ben Waled, a companion of the Prophet Muhammad who had initially severely opposed the prophet, a kind of Saul-turned-Paul story of early Islam (see a chronology of events here). 

Mujaddedi also fended off a Pakistani demand to sign a bilateral Strategic Partnership Agreement with Islamabad, according to a former mujahedin leader present during those events (earlier AAN reporting here). The agreement had been presented to Mujaddedi by then Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, in order to secure a special relationship after the takeover of the mujahedin. However, as it would have been rather unpopular among Afghans, Mujaddedi evaded giving a clear answer as a refusal would have burned bridges with the neighbouring country. (Such an agreement still does not exist.)

Between war and peace

While Mujaddedi later repeatedly claimed, including in a meeting with then European Union Special Representative Envoy Francesc Vendrell (the author was present and recalls this was in 2003) in his residence in Kabul’s Kargha suburb, that he had presided over the only peaceful period in the recent history of Afghanistan, the reality was much more blurred. Already, after the anti-Najibullah coup, mujahedin forces, mainly of Hezb-e Islami, Abdul Rabb Rasul Sayyaf’s Ettehad-e Islami and Jamiat-e Islami, under the command of Ahmad Shah Massud, had advanced to positions just outside the capital and were fighting each other in Kabul’s streets. Indeed, rockets were fired into Kabul on the very day of Mujaddedi’s inauguration. Facing this danger, and a still largely-functioning Kabul army – the loyalty of which was not assured – Mujaddedi had to be heavily persuaded to move into Kabul by co-mujahedin and their Pakistani supporters, as several Afghan interlocutors who were part of those events have told the author.

Fighting continued throughout Mujaddedi’s short tenure. In late May 1992, a peace agreement between Jamiat’s Massud and Hezb-e Islami’s Hekmatyar which named the latter as prime minister (Massud was already the defence minister) collapsed in less than a week, according to a report by Human Rights Watch that reconstructed the events of those days. On 29 May, Mujaddedi’s plane was hit as he was coming back from talks in Islamabad. Hekmatyar’s forces were blamed. Still, at this point, Human Rights Watch said, there was only “minimal damage to the city” from the fighting.

Mujaddedi was also not fully content with only serving for two months. Contemporary sources say he threatened not to hand over power to Rabbani, arguing in a famous sentence that two months was not enough time to demonstrate any success:“Pe dwo miashto ki cherga chechan ne shi istelai” or A hen cannot produce chicks in two months. (Hens’ eggs actually hatch after 21 days, but poultry keeping was not Hazrat Saheb’s strong point). Finally, he was persuaded to do so. (Also his party, Jabha-ye Melli did not have the firepower to match that of Jamiat.) On 28 June 1992, Rabbani took over the presidency of the interim government. 

Down the slope

The Islamic State of Afghanistan government disintegrated in the inter-factional wars between 1992 and 1996. Mujaddedi found himself on the side of the so-called Coordination Council (Shura-ye Hamahangi). He was the nominal head of this coalition, but its strongest forces were Hekmatyar’s Hezb, Dostum’s Jombesh and Abdul Ali Mazari’s Shia Hezb-e Wahdat (which had meanwhile been allowed to joint the government). Over the European new year of 1994, the Shura-ye Hamahangi tried and failed to oust the Islamic State of Afghanistan’s Rabbani/Massud leadership that had increasingly monopolised power and pushed out other factions one by one. The shura’s attempted coup included one of the worst barrages of rocket attacks of the war. 

When the Taleban took over Kabul in 1996, Mujaddedi initially welcomed their ascent, apparently hoping – as many other Afghan leaders – that he would be able to influence them. Also Adamec wrote that the ANLF recognised the Taleban government. However, Mujaddedi’s official biography comments that the Taleban “failed to benefit from the wise advices [sic] of Sheikh Al-Mojaddedi towards moderation.“ He later went into strict opposition to them, joining the National United Front for the Salvation on Afghanistan (more commonly know as the ‘Northern Alliance’). For his criticism of the Islamabad-backed Taleban, Mujaddedi was forced out of Pakistan in 1999 and went to Denmark another time.

Mujadeddi also joined political forces with the late Pir Sayed Ahmad Gailani’s National Islamic Front (Mahaz) of Afghanistan, in a new coalition, Jabha-ye Melli Islami-ye Afghanistan (as Mahaz, Jabha also means ‘front’, so this also translates into English as the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan). It morphed into the Association for Peace and National Unity of Afghanistan, in January 1999, and further into the looser Cyprus Group, which sent a delegation to the Afghanistan Conference in Bonn in 2001, led by Hekmatyar’s son-in-law Humayun Jarir.

A late political life in post-Taleban Afghanistan

With Hamed Karzai, a member of Mujaddedi’s ANLF became the new leader of post-Taleban Afghanistan in 2001. Mujaddedi expected that he would be consulted and play a central role in the new government, or, as his official biography put it, he would keep “a close eye on the President and his government’s performance and handling of affairs.” Although Karzai regularly consulted a council of the former top mujahedin leaders, Mujaddedi’s expectations obviously not fully materialised. In meetings with foreign dignities during this time, he would often not mention Karzai by name, but refer to him as “my assistant.” Later, publicly, he patronised him by calling him “my son and my student” and described how Karzai kissed his hand and greatly respected him (see earlier AAN reporting).

Relations improved after Karzai made Mujaddedi chair of the Constitutional Loya Jirga in late 2003. There, Mujaddedi vehemently rejected a petition signed by the required number of delegates to be voted upon that suggested naming the country the Republic of Afghanistan, again, without the adjective ‘Islamic’. He twice called the signatories ‘unbelievers’ and ‘apostates’ who, after the jirga, “will be punished.” Later on during the sessions, when female delegate Malalai Joya spoke of the “presence of those felons who brought our country to this state” in the jirga, without naming names but with a message clear to all Afghans, friends and foes, Mujaddedi reacted strongly again, calling her a ‘communist’ and an ‘infidel’ from the plenum. Although Mojaddedi apologised for his language in the final session, there is a death sentence for apostasy.

At the end of the sessions which took 22 days and spilled over into the new year 2004, Mujaddedi urged the 102 female and 400 male delegates to rise from their chairs “for two minutes” as a sign that they agreed to the new constitution late on 4 January 2004. All stood up without protest, although some had initially hesitated. The delegates received a medal as a memento of the occasion. Mujaddedi wept out of emotion. But there was no formal vote about the constitution (more AAN background here).

After the first post-Taleban parliamentary election in 2005, Karzai appointed Hazrat Saheb as a member of its upper house, the Meshrano Jirga or Senate. (The president had the right to appoint 34 of its 102 members.) Mujaddedi ran for its chair in December that year, but failed to win a 50 per cent majority of votes in the first round against the other two candidates, the former ‘Northern Alliance’ (Jamiat) intelligence chief and first post-Taleban director of NDS, Engineer Muhammad Aref, and Bakhtar Aminzai, a businessman from Paktia less than half his age. This led to a fit of anger, during which Mujaddedi referred to his merits in liberating Kabul and stormed out of the room. It took the efforts of a number of his co-senators to persuade him to return, after which Aminzai (who would have pitted against Mujaddedi in the second round of the vote) withdrew his candidacy with a rhetoric bow to the ‘jihadi leader’ Mujaddedi and the latter was proclaimed chairman without any further procedure.

Mujadeddi was reappointed as a member of the Senate in 2011. He did nor run for its chair, and soon fell out with Karzai, for whom he had done estekhara (a religious practice to find answers to pressing issues) (8) before his first election. In April 2012, he resigned from all his official positions, including in the Senate and his membership in the High Peace Council (HPC). The original statement by Mujaddedi’s office, reported by media in Kabul, cited the failure of the president “to consider the sincere views and demands of renowned jihadi leaders and public figures on issues of national importance” as his reason for quitting. It hinted at Mujaddedi’s disappointment that he had been passed over as head of the HPC when its chairman, Burhanuddin Rabbani, was assassinated in September 2011. (Rabbani’s son, Salahuddin, was appointed his successor.) Hazrat Saheb had been one of the two original leading contenders for its chair when the HPC was established in September 2010 (AAN analysis here), although Karzai had, finally, opted for Rabbani. Mujaddedi had previously headed the failing predecessor to the High Peace Council, the Independent National Commission for Peace and Reconciliation with its Program-e Tahkim-e Solh (PTS, Programme for Strengthening Peace). It was supposed to reintegrate insurgent fighters, but all but officially closed down on the insistence of donor governments for being “morally and financially bankrupt,” as an internal UN document put it (see AAN analysis here).

Another clash with Karzai happened during the November 2013 Consultative Loya Jirga convened to advise Karzai on whether or not to sign a bilateral security agreement, officially called the Security and Defence Agreement, with the United States. Mujaddedi chaired both the preparatory committee and the jirga itself. The majority of delegates, including himself, spoke in favour of the agreement. However, Karzai rejected the advice and Mujaddedi told him he would “resign and leave the country.” He used the religiously charged word “hejrat” for this threat, in an attempt to drive his point home, but in vain. Karzai never signed the agreement. Mujaddedi did leave, going to Denmark once more, but returned for the 2014 elections when he supported Ashraf Ghani in the second round of the 2014 presidential election. According to ToloNews, he said: “Days and nights I was thinking who to support, at the end and after istekharas (…) and the information I receive from people I reached the decision to support Ashraf Ghani.”

[Next two paragraphs amended 13 Feb, 10.45pm Kabul time] The tradition of trying to get Hazrat Saheb’s support has continued; the 2019 presidential candidate and former director of the National Security Council, Hanif Atmar, said on 18 January – a few weeks before Mujadeddi’s death – in his speech at an official ceremony in Kabul Star Hotel before going to the IEC for registration:

Last night, I went for dast-busi (kissing the hand) of honourable Hazrat Mujaddedi. He was [lying] in sickbed. He accepted to receive me in that condition and said, I performed prayers [blessings] to you for the sake of Afghanistan. I ask the Almighty God for his full health and recovery.

Despite suffering worsening health, Mujaddedi remained politically active, although he was sidelined more and more. In August 2015, he set up a High Council of Jihadi and National Parties (CJNP), bringing together jihadi figures that had supported Ashraf Ghani during his election campaign but had then become frustrated by the president (AAN analysis here). It was founded to reassert their political influence on the new government, with Mujadeddi claiming the lead again as the elder statesman, with a stated mission to “fight corruption, bring peace and to support the good work of the government and oppose any wrongdoings of the government.” Members included Muhammad Karim Khalili, former second vice-president and leader of the largely Hazara Hezb-e Wahdat-e Islami, Ahmad Zia Massud, the president’s special representative for good governance and reform, and two other presidential advisors, Qutbuddin Helal from Hezb-e Islami and Sayyed Hussain Anwari, head of the Shia mujahedin tanzim, Hezb-e Harakat-e Islami (until his death on 5 July 2016). However, this lose group did not take off, and key members went different ways.

… and then there were three

As a Sufi leader, as the leader of one of the more moderate mujahedin tanzims (but not a royalist as often purported) and as a mediator, Hazrat Saheb Sebghatullah Mujaddedi was well respected by large parts of the Afghan population. He has become the sixth of the eight historical top mujahedin leaders who are now dead, following Abdul Ali Mazari (the only Shia among them, murdered by the Taleban on 12 March 1995); Mawlawi Muhammad Nabi Muhammadi of Harakat-e Enqelab-e Islami (died 21 April 2002); Mawlawi Yunes Khales, leader of one of two historical Hezb-e Islami (died 19 July 2006); Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani of Jamiat-e Islami who was assassinated by a Taleban ‘envoy’ 20 September 2011; and Pir Sayed Ahmad Gailani of Mahaz-e Melli-ye Islami who died on 21 January 2017 (media report here). This only leaves Abdul Rabb Rassul Sayaf of Ettehad-e Islami, Muhammad Karim Khalili, Mazari’s successor as leader of Hezb-e Wahdat, and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar of Hezb-e Islami alive, the latter having returned from the insurgency to political life in Kabul in May 2017 (AAN reporting here) after a controversial peace deal a year earlier. (9)

The government has declared 13 February 2019 a public day of morning, and announced that government institutions will remain closed. On that day, a public fateha (mourning ceremony), will be held in Kabul’s Ghazi (or Olympic) stadium. Mujaddedi will then be buried at the famous Asheqan o Arefan cemetery where a last resting place for members of his family already exists.

Other literature used for this dispatch and not directly quoted in the text:

• Abuzar Purzada Ghaznawi, Tarikh-e siasi-ye Afghanistan-e mu’aser 5: Ahzab-e jihadi-ye Afghanistan [Political History of Modern Afghanistan 5: Jihadi political parties], Kabul: Hamid Resalat, 1395 [2016]
• Sayyed Muhammad Baqer Mosbahzada, Aghaz wa farjam-e jombeshha-ye siasi dar Afghanistan, 1284-1381 [The beginning and evolution of political movements in Afghanistan, 1905-2002], Kabul: Shah Books, 1384 [2005].

Edited by Kate Clark

(1) Hazrat is an honorific Arabic title used in Islamic societies to honour a person which literally denotes and translates to “presence, appearance” in a religious sense, with denotations of the charismatic. Saheb is the equivalent of “Sir.”

(2) This is based on the belief that after every one thousand years, God choses someone for the renovation of religion.

(3) This visit started a period of closer Afghan-Soviet cooperation, after the US had shunned Afghanistan (including its requests for arms deliveries), following Kabul’s insistence on its internationally non-aligned position and refusal to join the anti-Soviet Baghdad Pact (later CENTO). (More background in this AAN paper.)

(4) The Musaheban brothers or ‘companions’ of late Amir Habibullah (1901–19) were rivals of Habibullah’s son and successor, Amanullah. After the assassination King Muhammad Nader (ruled 1929–33), who was one of them, they were the effective rulers of Afghanistan, while Zaher Shah was still very young. (He once related in the presence of the author that he was made one year older when ascending to the throne, to reach the required age of 18 years.) The other Musaheban were: Muhammad Hashem (Prime Minister 1929–46), Shah Mahmud (Prime Minister 1946–53), Marshal Shah Wali (commander of the Central Army Corps in Kabul) and Muhammad Aziz, Daud’s father who had been assassinated in 1933 by a supporter of Amanullah while serving as an Ambassador in Berlin.

(5) The first Islamist circles started to gather around Ghulam Muhammad Niazi, the dean of the Sharia Faculty at Kabul University, in 1957, according to Afghan historian Muhammad Hassan Kakar.In 1969, the student wing of this movement, led by Abdulrahim Niazi evolved into the Jawanan-e Musalman (Muslim Youth) which, in turn, morphed into Jamiat-e Islami around 1973. 

(6) Mujaddedi’s party, interestingly, was the only one of the eight largest tanzimsthat did not have the word ‘Islamic’ in its name, reflecting the idea widespread in Afghanistan that this does not need even to be mentioned in a country where more than 99 per cent of the population is Muslim.

(7) Later he also served as his father’s ‘chief executive’ at the Program-e Tahkim-e Solh.

(8) [Amended 13 Feb, 10pm Kabul time: In the Hanafi’s school of thought and according to the Prophet’s instruction, in this case one does his/her prayers (نماز – namaz) and (دعا – du’a) then goes straight to bed and the advice whether to do something or not appears in the dream.]

(9) [Amended 13 Feb, 10pm Kabul time: While technically, Khalili is not one of the historical leaders (the founders and number ones in their particular tanzims; that was Mazari), he stands long enough at the top of Hezb-e Wahdat that we count him here. There is also Sheikh Asef Mohseni, the founder of Harakat-e Islami, who is still alive, but his tanzim was (it has split meanwhile), so to say, the largest among the many small mujahedin factions (others would be the Shia groups that, in 1989, joined Hezb-e Wahdat, or Muhammad Mohaqqeq’s Hezb-e Wahdat-e Mardom, but that split from the original Wahdat later; or the Mansur faction of Harakat-e Enqelab-e Islami), so we did not count him here.]

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The Independent Election Commission has published the preliminary list of the 2019 presidential candidates. The list includes 18 candidates. It should now go through a vetting process and a challenge and appeal period before it is finalised and published on 26 March, according to the electoral calendar. AAN’s researcher, Ali Yawar Adili, looks at the list and provides a brief background on the 18 presidential tickets. He also points out that there are still doubts about whether the election date, 20 July 2019, can be adhered to, not least because new rifts between the president and the other candidates about some necessary electoral reform steps have appeared (with input from Thomas Ruttig). 

The Independent Election Commission (IEC) has published the preliminary list of the candidates for the presidential elections scheduled for 20 July 2019. The list was published on 5 February 2019, as per the electoral calendar. The IEC has approved all 18 candidates who had submitted complete documents and paid the deposit money of one million afghanis (around USD 13,300). (This amount is returned to the candidate if they win or receive at least ten percent of the valid votes polled in the first round of the elections.). Two applicants were rejected because they had failed to meet the legal requirements. (1)

The candidates include: incumbent Ashraf Ghani, Chief Executive, Abdullah Abdullah, and former national security adviser, Muhammad Hanif Atmar. They are widely seen as the favourites. 

Almost half of these 18 candidates had run in at least one previous presidential election. Apart from the incumbent (who had run unsuccessfully in 2009) and the 2009 and 2014 runner-up Chief Executive Abdullah, there are: Zalmai Rassul (2014), Latif Pedram (2005), Hakim Tursan and Dr Faruq Nejrabi (2004).

In contrast to the 2004 and 2009 elections, there are no women candidates. In 2004, the only female candidate, Massuda Jalal, finished at rank six from amongst a total of 18 candidates (see the results here). In 2009, two female candidates stood. In 2014, there was one female candidate who was disqualified before the poll. (2) This time, only three candidates have proposed one woman each for one of their two vice-presidential posts (see the list of the tickets in the table below). 

The initial nomination period was from 22 December 2018 to 2 January 2019 when the elections were still planned for 20 April 2019. It was extended until 20 January after the election date was moved to 20 July 2019 (see AAN’s previous reporting here).  

Who are the presidential tickets?

The IEC has published the following preliminary list of the candidates (see the statement and list here: and the list with photos here). It is unclear how the IEC has chosen the order. In response to AAN’s enquiry, a deputy spokesman for the IEC, Abdul Aziz Ibrahimi, first said that it was based on alphabetic order, but when he was shown that this was definitely not the case, he said that it was not important, as it is still a preliminary list. Earlier, the IEC had published the names in a different order, based on the order of the dates they had registered (see here): 

NoPresidential candidateFirst running-mateSecond running-mate1Abdul Latif PedramMuhammad Ehsan HaidariMuhammad Sadeq Wardak2Haji Muhmmad Ibrahim Alekozai Khadija GhaznawiDr Sayyed Sami Kayani3Dr Zalmai RassulAbdul Jabbar TaqwaGhulam Wali Wahdat4Pohand Professor Dr Ghulam Faruq NejrabiSharifullahMuhammad Sharif Babakarkhel5Dr Faramarz TamanaPohanmal (Prof.) Sayyed Qiyas SaidiDr Muhammad Amin Reshadat6Shaida Muhammad AbdaliAbdul Basir SalangiZulfiqar Omid7Nur Rahman LiwalDr Abdul Hadi Zul HekmatMuhammad Yahya Wayar8Enayatullah HafizJannat Khan Fahim ChakariAbdul Jamil Shirani9Muhammad Shahab HakimiAbdul Ali SarabiDr Nurul Habib Hasir10Ahmad Wali MassudPohand Dr Farida MomandDr Abdul Latif Nazari11Muhammad Hakim TursanMuhammad Nader Shah AhmadzaiDiplom Engineer Shafiullah Qaisari12Rahmatullah NabilMurad Ali MuradDr Massuda Jalal13Gulbuddin HekmatyarPohandoy Dr Fazl ul-Hadi WazinMufti Hafiz ul-Rahman Naqi14Sayyed Nurullah JaliliAbdul Khalil RumanCheragh Ali Cheragh15Dr Abdullah AbdullahDr Enayatullah Babur FarahmandAsadullah Sadati16Muhammad Ashraf GhaniAmrullah SalehGhulam Sarwar Danesh17Muhammad Hanif AtmarMuhammad Yunus QanuniHaji Muhammad Mohaqeq18Nur ul-Haq UlumiBashir Ahmad BezhanMuhammad Naem Ghayur

The two tickets not registered were: Ahmad Elyas Elyasi, with Abdul Maqsud Hasanzada and Amruddin Fahim as running-mates; and, Ustad Zia ul-Haq Hafizi, with Muhammad Zalmai Afghanyar Popal and Omid Langari as his first and second running-mates (see also media report here).

What will happen now?

Now that the preliminary list has been published and according to the electoral calendar (see it annexed to AAN’s previous report here), the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) will conduct a 48-day vetting process from 5 February to 22 March. 

For up to two weeks following the publication of the list, objections to the preliminary list can be submitted to the ECC in accordance with article 74 of the electoral law. Paragraph one of article 91 of the same law says that “individuals, political parties and other organisations” may file objections with regard to the ineligibility of a particular candidate or candidates within two working days. 

It is not clear why two deadlines are given for the objections. It seems that the ECC also is not fully clear about this. Spokesman Rohani told AAN that one interpretation could be that article 79 refers to the general objections to the preliminary list, while article 91 is specifically about ineligibility. It is also unclear why the time for objections is so limited (particularly the two-days deadline that, practically, makes objections impossible), while the commission has been given almost seven weeks to work on their decisions on them. 

The criteria under which candidates on the preliminary list can be disqualified are given in two articles of the electoral law:  

Article 44 bans members or commanders of illegal armed groups from standing. The responsibility to investigate their possible links to illegal armed groups rests with a Vetting Commission that forms part of the ECC. It is headed by the ECC chair, currently Abdul Aziz Ariayi, and includes representatives from the National Directorate of Security (NDS), the Ministries of Interior and Defence and the Independent Directorate of Local Governance (IDLG). These institutions are charged with providing the ECC with the needed intelligence about candidates. After its deliberations, the vetting commission then recommends a list of those candidates found to be linked to illegal armed groups to the ECC for disqualification, which then takes the final decisions (see AAN’s previous reporting here).

Article 38 of the electoral law prescribes further requirements for the presidential candidates, as follows: they must be 1) an Afghan citizen, a Muslim and born to Afghan parents and not have the citizenship of another country; 2) not be less than 40 years of age on the day of candidacy; 3) not have been convicted of crimes against humanity and felony or deprived of civil rights by the country; 4) not have been elected as a president or vice-president for more than two terms. Their running-mates are also required to meet the same requirements. (3) 

Any candidate the ECC disqualifies will have the opportunity to appeal. The ECC will then address this, and then the decision will be final. (4)

It is not clear whether or not all 18 candidates will survive the vetting and challenge process. In 2014, 27 candidates had registered, but the IEC brought the list down to 10 (see this list here). The then head of the commission, Yusef Nuristani, told journalists they had excluded candidates who had a second citizenship or had failed to submit 100,000 voter cards of supporters from at least 20 provinces or had other problems with their registration. This time, the IEC sent a query to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the issue of a possible dual citizenship of candidates or their running-mates, as a deputy spokesman for the IEC, Ibrahimi, told media on 6 February. However, it seems that the IEC has not yet received any response. Ibrahimi said that, as this would possibly be time-consuming, the issue could be clarified later and before the publication of the final list. 

Candidates on the preliminary list can still withdraw their names by 23 March. In this case, they should inform the ECC in writing. There have been such cases during previous elections when some candidates decided to withdraw to favour another candidate in return for them securing a government position should the favoured candidate win or to enter into another form of a political deal. If they withdraw after that date, they remain on the ballot, but any votes cast for them are not counted and their deposits are not returned with the money going into the state revenue. (5)

When this procedure is finished, the IEC will conduct the ballot lottery on 25 March to determine the order of candidates’ names on the ballot and publish the final candidates list on 26 March. The election campaign will start on 19 May and continue for 60 days until 17 July. This will be followed by a silence period of 48 hours before the polling day on 20 July.

Brief background to the tickets

Most registered tickets have adopted a name to indicate the focus of their respective election campaign or programme. (6) ‘Justice’ and ‘peace’ are the two most used words. We follow IEC’s order of the tickets on the preliminary list: 

Azadi wa Adalat (Freedom and Justice) team led by Abdul Latif Pedram, a Tajik from Badakhshan, who leads his own party, the Tajik-ethno-nationalist and pro-federalism National Congress Party. Pedram was an unsuccessful 2004 presidential candidate, a two-term (2005-10 and 2010-19) former MP, and an unsuccessful 2018 parliamentary candidate from his home province of Badakhshan. His first and second running-mates are respectively: 

• Ehsanullah Haidari, a Hazara from a prominent family in Ashterlai district of Daikundi province. He has a degree in sociology and archaeology from Kabul University. Haidari worked with several NGOs, including Oxfam and French Action contre la Faim. 
• Muhammad Sadeq Wardak, a Pashtun from Maidan Wardak province. He attended school up to secondary education and is a former Jihadi figure. (The info about both comes from diplomatic community sources) 

Mubareza bar zed Zulm wa Be-adalati (Fight against Oppression and Injustice) team led by Muhammad Ibrahim Alekozai, a Pashtun from Kandahar, who is the head of the National Consensus of the People of Afghanistan, a political coalition that came together in 2017 (media report). Since then, the group has been taking positions on political issues in a bid to establish political relevance. Alekozai is an elder of the eponymous tribe and chief of its council (according to diplomatic sources). He has graduated from political sciences from Kabul University and ran in the 2018 parliamentary elections in Kandahar, but was not elected (media report). His first and second running-mates are respectively:

• Khadija Ghaznawi, a Hazara born in Badakhshan (see here), but the family with origins from Ghazni (diplomatic sources), who tried to run with her own ticket in the 2014 presidential elections, but was disqualified (AAN’s reports here and here). Ghaznawi owns a logistic company, and is the president of the Ibrahim Asia Group of Companies.
• Sayyed Same Kayani from Ismaili-inhabited Kayan valley, Dushi district of Baghlan. 

Wahdat, Shafafiat wa Etedal (Unity, Transparency and Moderation) team led by Dr Zalmai Rasul, a Pashtun born in Kabul, but originally from Kandahar, who is a medical doctor, and served as minister of transport and civil aviation, minister of foreign affairs, and national security adviser to former President Karzai. Before 2001, he was the chief of staff of former King Zaher Shah in his exile in Rome. Rassul, with Ahmad Zia Massud and Habiba Sarabi as running-mates, also ran in the 2014 presidential elections (see here), and ranked third in the first round. His first and second running-mates are respectively: 

• Abdul Jabbar Taqwa, a Tajik from Farkhar district of Takhar, who was a member of Jamiat-e Islami during mujahedin (diplomatic sources) and has served as a governor of Parwan, Takhar and Kabul (see his biography here)
• Ghulam Ali Wahdat, a Hazara from Bamyan, who has servedas a governor of Bamyan as well as in several positions within the ministry of interior, including provincial police chief in Bamyan, police chief of the 404th Maiwand zone in southern Afghanistan, deputy minister of interior (see here). He is the brother of MP Safura Elkhani. He competed for 2018 Wolesi Jirga elections and was sentenced to three years in prison for misusing his authority and, as of October 2018, was said to be imprisoned, but still had the right to appeal (diplomatic sources).

A yet-unnamed ticket led by Ghulam Faruq Nejrabi, a Tajik from Kapisa province, who is the leaders of Hezb-e Esteqlal Afghanistan, holds PhD in surgery from Indira Gandhi University, India. It is the third time he is running for presidency (see also media report). His first and second running-mates are respectively: 

• Sharifullah (no information available so far) 
• Muhammad Sharif Babakarkhel 

Tadbir wa Tawse’a (Prudence and Development) team led by Dr Faramarz Tamana, a Tajik born in Herat, who holds two PhD degrees in the field of international relations and studies from Tehran University, Iran, and Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. He has worked with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in various capacities since 2002. Before registering to run for the presidential elections, he was head of the Centre for Strategic Studies of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has been teaching as lecturer in different universities for the last ten years and is the chancellor of a private Afghanistan University. His first and second running-mates are respectively:

• Pohanmal (Prof.) Sayyed Qias Saidi, born in Chaparhar district of Nangarhar province. Sa’idi has completed his higher education in the field of economics from the University of Nangarhar and Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. He has worked with UNICEF as the head of public outreach and information in Nangahar, in charge of regional office of the United Nations Refugees Agency in eastern provinces, and head of Nangarhar provincial department of economy. 
•  Dr Muhammad Amin Reshadat, a Hazara born in Ghazni, holds a PhD in sociology (development and social change) from Shiraz University in Iran. Reshadat is currently deputy chancellor and a member of founding board of private Gharjestan University in Kabul. (The biographical information is extracted from their biographies published in Dari on Tamana’s Facebook account on 17 January 2019.)

Musharekat wa Taghir (Participation and Change) team led by Shaida Abdali, a Pashtun from Kandahar, who holds a master’s degree from the US and a PhD from India, and served as former deputy head of the National Security Council under former President, Hamed Karzai. Abdali has also been ambassador to India (2012-18). His first and second running-mates are respectively: 

• Abdul Basir Salangi, a Tajik from Parwan, is a member of Jamiat-e Islami party, has served as chief of police in Kabul, Maidan Wardak and Nangarhar between 2002 and 2009, as well as governor of Parwan and Farah in 2009-18 (see also this).
• Zulfiqar Omid, a Hazara from Daikundi, is the leader of Labour and Development party and is one of the leaders of the Enlightening Movement, a predominantly Hazara protest movement that emerged in protest to the rerouting of TUTAP power line from Bamyan to Salang (see AAN background here and here). Omid served as the director of international relations at the administrative office of the president during Karzai’s second term, and was an unsuccessful parliamentary candidate 2018 from Kabul and 2004 from Daikundi.

Masuliat wa Adalat (Responsibility and Justice) team, led by Nur Rahman Liwal. He was born in Logar province and is a computer and software engineer and the founder and owner of Pashto language software company in Kabul (media report here). He was also a candidate in the 2014 presidential election. His first and second running-mates are respectively:  

• Abdul Hadi Zul-Hekmat, a Pashtun from Logar province 
• Muhammad Yahya Wyar, a Pashtun from Khak-e-Jabar district of Kabul province, and a medical doctor with Jihadi background. He was a candidate for both 2014 and 2018 WJ elections, but failed to be elected. He worked as a public outreach officer for the Joint Election Management Body (JEMB) in 2005.

Khademin-e Mellat (Servants of the Nation) team led by Enayatullah Hafiz, a Hazara from Behsud district of Maidan Wardak. He has graduated from language and literature from Shahid Rabbani Education University, Kabul. He has been an unsuccessful two-times candidate for provincial councils, as well as an unsuccessful one-time candidate for the Wolesi Jirga (media report here). His first and second running-mates are respectively:  

• Jannat Khan Fahim Chakari, a Pashtun from the Chakari area, Bagrami district of Kabul province. Chakari holds a bachelor degree in military affairs and is a former military officer (diplomatic sources).
• Abdul Jamil Shirani, also a Pashtun, from Kabul. He holds a bachelor degree and is a former employee of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (diplomatic sources).    

Solh, Qanuniat wa Refah (Peace, Lawfulness and Welfare) team led by Shahab Hakimi, a Pashtun from Maidan Wardak province, who holds a degree in agriculture from Kabul University and a master’s degree in administration from Preston University, Islamabad. He has worked as a lecturer at Kabul and, recently, as the director of the Mine Detection Centre. He was an unsuccessful candidate in the 2005 Wolesi Jirga elections. His first and second running-mates are respectively (media reports here and here):  

• Nur ul-Habib Hasir (no information available so far)
• Abdul Ali Sarabi (no information available so far)

Wefaq-e Melli (National Accord) team led by Ahmad Wali Massud, a Tajik from Panjshir, who is another leading Jamiat member and brother of assassinated mujahedin leader Ahmad Shah Massud. He served as Afghan ambassador to London for many years, starting under the ISA government of Prof Borhanuddin Rabbani (1992-96). Today, he heads the Ahmad Shah Massud foundation in Kabul. Massud’s first and second running-mates are respectively:  

• Pohand Dr Farida Momand, a Pashtun from Nangarhar, who has served as professor at Kabul Medical University and dean of the paediatric department, and minister of higher education from President Ghani’s camp from April 2015 to 14 November 2016, when she lost a vote of confidence in the Wolesi Jirga (see AAN’s background here and here); She was an unsuccessful candidate for the 2009 provincial elections,  the 2010 and 2018 parliamentary elections.
• Dr Latif Nazari, a Hazara from Ghazni, holds a PhD in international relations from Tehran University, Iran, and is the founder of Eslahat Newspaper and the head of board of founders of private Gharjestan University. Nazari was a 2018 parliamentary candidate from Kabul, but did not win (his bio on his supporters’ Facebook page here). Nazari was previously a member of Hezb-e Wahdat-e Mardom led by Muhammad Mohaqeq.

Amal mekonem, sho’ar na medehem (We act, we do not chant slogans) team led by Hakim Tursan, an Uzbek born in Kabul. He graduated in Persian literature from Kabul University, and served in various intelligence capacities under former President Dr Najibullah. He ran in 2009 (but withdrew before the campaign) and 2014 (according to his bio, his supporters published). His running-mates are respectively:

• Nader Shah Ahmadzai, a Pashtun from Kabul, who is head of Civil Rights and Research Organisation of Afghanistan. He was one of the 17 presidential candidates disqualified in the 2014 presidential election
• Muhammad Shafi Qaisari, an Uzbek from Qaisar district of Faryab (see also here). He graduated from the Polytechnic Engineering Faculty at the University of Kabul and is a former head of Governmental Housing Company (Tassadi-ye Microrayonha) in Kabul. Qaisari is a leftist and former member of the Jombesh party (according to diplomatic sources). 

Amniyat wa Adalat (Security and Justice) team led by Rahmatullah Nabil, a Pashtun from Maidan Wardak (see AAN bio here). He served as the head of President’s Protection Service (PPS) in the presidential palace under President Karzai and then as chief of National Directorate of Security (NDS) from July 2010 to late 2015 (see AAN’s previous reporting here). He is a founding member of Mehwar-e Mardom-e Afghanistan coalition (AAN reporting here). His first and second running-mates are respectively:  

• Murad Ali Murad, a Hazara from Ghor province, who has served as commander of the Kabul Garrison until early 2019 (a position he resigned from in order to be able to run) and before as senior deputy minister of interior for security, first deputy of chief of army staff, and general commander of ground forces (see also his short bio on a Facebook page of his supporters here).
• Dr Massuda Jalal, a Tajik from Badakhshan, who was a presidential candidate in the first, 2004 presidential election, and then served as the minister of women’s affairs from October 2004 to July 2006 (see also AAN’s previous reporting here). She was a candidate in the October 2018 parliamentary elections from Kabul, but was not elected.  

Solh wa Adalat-e Islami (Peace and Islamic Justice) team led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a Pashtun from Kunduz, the leader of Hezb-e Islami during the war against the Soviet occupation and now of one of its factions (AAN background here). His first and second running-mates are respectively:

• Dr Fazl ul-Hadi Wazin, a Tajik from Parwan, who has a PhD degree in Islamic studies from Imam Muhammad Ben Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and served as lecturer in International Islamic University in Islamabad, and a visiting professor in Fatema Jinah University, Pakistan. 
• Mufti Hafiz ul-Rahman Naqi, a Tajik from Badakhshan, who has served as a judge, as well as in other capacities in the judiciary, and was an unsuccessful candidate in the 2010 and 2018 parliamentary elections.

The information about the two running-mates is extracted from their bios AAN received from a deputy spokesman for the party, Fazl Ghani Haqmal. He claimed in a conversation with AAN on 7 February that Hezb-e Islami had picked the running-mates based on merits, and not on any division of ethnic groups. Haqmal said that both running-mates were members of Hezb-e Islami. Media had earlier wrongly reported that Wazin was an Uzbek (see here and here). 

A yet-unnamed ticket led by Nurullah Jalili. Ali Madad Rezayi, the person in charge of his public relations, told AAN on 7 February that the name and slogan of Jalili’s ticket had not yet been finalised. Jalili is a Sayyed from Nangarhar province and graduated from Kabul medical university. He previously worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the Taleban. He is the director of the Kabul-based road-construction company America. Both he and his company worked as contractors with the US military (according to diplomatic sources). His first and second running-mates are respectively:  

• Khalil Roman, a Tajik born in Kabul, who has graduated in journalism, was a member of the Parcham branch of People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, has served as chief of staff of former President Dr Najibullah, and deputy chief of staff of former President Karzai. He was an unsuccessful candidate in 2010 parliamentary elections from Kabul province. 
• Cheragh Ali Cheragh, has served as director of Kunduz public health department, head of Jamhuriyat hospital, Kabul Medial Institute, acting head of Shahid Rabbani Education University, and head of Balkh University (media report here). Cheragh was the second running-mate of Dr Abdullah in the 2009 presidential elections. 

Subat wa Hamgerayi (Stability and Integration) team led by Dr Abdullah Abdullah, the current chief executive of the National Unity Government and a prominent member of Jamiat-e Islami. After 2009 and 2014, this is the third time Abdullah has run for the presidency. Some leaders of his party, such as Ismail Khan, had requested him not to run again, criticising him for his – in his view – too quiet role in what he called the “kindergarten” National Unity Government. Abdullah’s first and second running-mates are respectively: 

• Dr Enayatullah Babur Farahmand, an Uzbek born in Jawzjan, who holds a medical degree from Balkh University and has served as correspondent, producer and reporter with the BBC Uzbek service. He was an MP from 2010 to 2015, and chief of staff of first Vice-President General Abdul Rashid Dostum from 2015 until January 2019 when he resigned to be Dostum’s man in Abdullah’s ticket (see his bio on his Facebook page in English here). 
• Asadullah Sadati, a Hazara MP from Daikundi, who holds a degree in literature from Kabul University and a master’s degree in international relations from the private Ibn-e Sina Unversity, also Kabul. He was an MP from 2010 to 2019 and is affiliated with the leader of one faction of Hezb-e Wahdat-e Islami and head of High Peace Council, Muhammad Karim Khalili.  

Dawlat-sazan (State-builders) team led by Muhammad Ashraf Ghani, a Pashtun from Logar province, who is the incumbent president of the National Unity Government since 2014. He has served as adviser to former President Karzai during his interim administration, chancellor of Kabul University, and minister of finance. He was a candidate in the 2009 presidential elections and ranked fourth. He was appointed by Karzai as the head of the Transition Coordination Commission. The team’s title possibly refers to Ghani’s book Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World (2009, with Clare Lockhart). His first and second running-mates are respectively: 

• Amrullah Saleh, a Tajik from Panjshir, and a former Jamiati who has distanced himself from his old party. He now runs his own Green Trend of Afghanistan, which he established after his resignation as NDS director in 2010 and had its first public appearance on 5 May 2011. Saleh supported Dr Abdullah in the 2014 presidential election. During the NUG, he co-headed the fact-finding commission investigating the 2015 fall of Kunduz. He was appointed as state minister for security reform in March 2017, but resigned after three months and as minister of interior in December 2018. After less than a month, he resigned again to be able to run on Ghani’s ticket (see AAN background here and here).
• Second Vice-President Sarwar Danesh, a Hazara from Daikundi province, served as the first governor of Daikundi (after it was established in 2004), minister of justice and higher education under former President Karzai. Danesh was a member of the constitutional drafting commission in 2003. He is a member of Khalili’s Wahdat-e Islami Party, which supported Ghani in the 2014 presidential election. However, this time, Khalili’s party has announced its support for Abdullah. 
• It is important to note Ghani has also picked a third, informal running-mate: Muhammad Yusef Ghazanfar, an Uzbek and former MP from Balkh, and brother of former minister of women’s affairs, Husn Banu Ghazanfar (diplomatic source). Ghazanfar was present at Ghani’s registration and might serve as an adviser or special representative to him, until any possible amendment to the constitution to create a third vice-presidential post. 

An idea had been floated to amend the constitution to create a third vice-presidential post, but in more practical terms, this step is a bid to garner the votes of the Uzbek community,the fourth-largest ethnic group of the country. (On Ghani’s 2014 ticket, Dostum was the vice-president ‘for the Uzbeks’; there was no Tajik on the ticket then.)

Solh wa Etedal (Peace and Moderation) team led by Muhammad Hanif Atmar, a Pashtun from Laghman, who has served as national security adviser to President Ghani until 2018, and before as minister of rural rehabilitation and development, education and interior under President Karzai (who fired him – AAN background here and here). Atmar is also a founding member of the Right and Justice party established in 2011 (AAN background here). His first and second running-mates are respectively: 

• Former vice-president Muhammad Yunus Qanuni, a Tajik from Panjshir, is senior Jamiat member. In 2001, Qanuni served as chief negotiator for the ‘Northern Alliance’ delegation at the Bonn conference.  He was a candidate in the 2004 presidential election, ranking second. He also served as speaker of Wolesi Jirga from 2005 to 2010, MP from Kabul from 2010, and as first vice-president following the death of Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim in March 2014 (AAN background here) till October of the same year. 
• Muhammad Mohaqeq, the second deputy to Chief Executive Abdullah, and the leader of Hazara-dominated Hezb-e Wahdat-e Mardom-e Afghanistan. Mohaqeq served as a vice-president and the minister of planning in Karzai’s interim government, and was a candidate in the 2004 presidential elections, ranking third. He was a two-term MP from Kabul (2005-10 and 2010-14 when he resigned to join Abdullah’s ticket as second running-mate). On 24 January, President Ghani issued a decree dismissing Mohaqeq from his position as the deputy chief executive, which he rejected as “illegal.” Chief Executive Abdullah, who had nominated him, called the dismissal as “totally in contradiction with the spirit of the political agreement founding the National Unity Government,” saying that the government would continue to serve till the next presidential elections are held and “the next legitimate government is formed.” 
• Like Ghani, Atmar has also picked a third, informal running-mate, Alem Sa’i, an Uzbek and a former governor of Jawzjan. He is a member of the anti-Dostum New Jombesh party, which declared its existence in June 2017 (AAN background here).

Mardomsalari, Enkeshaf wa Tawazun (Democracy [People’s Power], Development and Balance) team led by Nur ul-Haq Ulumi, a Pashtun from Kandahar, who leads his own political party called Hezb-e Mutahed-e Melli (National United Party) and served as minister of interior from January 2015 to February 2016 (see AAN reports here and here). He was an MP from Kandahar from 2005 to 2010. Under the government of President Najbullah (1986-92), he was a general and head of the southwestern zone, ie ‘Greater Kandahar’. His first and second running-mates are respectively:  

• Bashir Bezhan, a Tajik from Badakhshan,  who has served as editor of Ariana Airlines magazine Parwaz, editor of Khabar Negar and the founder and editor of the weekly cultural magazine Cina magazine. He was and unsuccessful candidate in 2009 presidential elections and 2018 parliamentary elections from Kabul.
• Muhammad Naim Ghayur, born in Guzara district of Herat, according to his Facebook profile, is from a mixed Tajik/Pashtun family. His father is originally from Ghor province and his mother hails from the Katawaz area of Paktika province. He holds a bachelor in law and political science degree, as well as attended several military and intelligence courses in Afghanistan and abroad. He started his official governmental career as Enjil district direct of NDS and served in the ministry of defence in different capacities, including director of intelligence for 606 Ansar police zone in Herat province (2014-18). Ghayur is said to be a leftist, formerly with the PDPA’s Parcham faction (diplomatic sources), and is currently a member of Ulumi’s party.

Conclusion: Caveats

All proceedings for the planned July 2019 presidential election continue to be overshadowed by the on-going peace efforts (AAN analysis here) and the election reform process. On the former, US special envoy for reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, said at an event at the US Institute of Peace in Washington DC on 8 February that he hoped to achieve a peace agreement with the Taleban before the 20 July 2019 election date. An agreement, whenever reached at, would require to then merge the (old or new) Afghan government with the Taleban who – as a partner of such an agreement – however so far do not consider the government in Kabul as an actor in its own right.

On election reform, President Ghani held a consultative meeting with a number of presidential candidates or their representatives, as well as with representatives of some political parties in the presidential palace on 8 February (report by the presidential office here). There, the president said that there was a consensus to amend the electoral law and that the government had prepared draft amendments. On 9 February, another consultative meeting with representatives of candidates, parties and observer organisations was chaired by Vice-President Sarwar Danesh to discuss various articles of the proposed amendments to the law (see here on his Facebook page). No outcome was officially reported. Mobinullah Aimaq, the head of Free Watch Afghanistan, an observer organisation, who had participated in the meeting, told AAN on 9 February that there was no agreement reached and it was decided to meet again. 

On 9 February, a joint committee of the presidential candidates, which includes all presidential tickets except President Ghani’s, issued a statement. This said that the council had rejected the amendments proposed by the Palace on 8 February. These candidates submitted their own draft amendments including: retaining the selection committee for shortlisting applicants for the position of electoral commissioners, but changing its members (while the government’s draft amendment, of which AAN has seen a copy, calls for abolishing the selection committee and asks registered political parties and election-related civil society organisations to introduce 15 candidates each and the president – then in consultation with the chief justice, speakers of the two houses of the parliament, attorney general, heads of the commission for overseeing the implementation of the constitution and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, as well as heads of political parties and civil society organisations – appoints seven of them as IEC members); calling for the appointment of new electoral commissioners and heads of the IEC and ECC secretariats in consultation with the candidates; cancelling the existing voter list and preparing a new one using biometric technology only; and using technology in the presidential elections (without specifying whether it means they want electronic voting). 

On 11 February, the IEC issued a statement saying that it had been informed through the media that the government seeks to amend the electoral law and endorse it through a legislative decree. It said that given that the president and the chief executive of the national unity government are among the candidates, amendments to the electoral law by the national unity government at this critical time “will not pursue any other goals other than manipulating the upcoming election process, which is very dangerous for the country’s future and the post-elections that will result from this will move the country to crisis.” 

The IEC said that it had referred the issue of how to amend the electoral law to the legal institutions, including the Supreme Court and the Commission for Overseeing the Implementation of the Constitution so they can share their legal opinions with the IEC and other bodies that seek to amend the electoral law at this juncture.

This shows that the palace and a unified front of all other candidates are currently at loggerheads over large parts of the electoral reforms, including the mechanism of changing the commissioners, and they both face backlash from the IEC. If the disagreement lingers, it will continue to hamper the preparations and, perhaps, lead to another delay in the elections, as the IEC might not be able to start certain important activities, such as the top-up voter registration exercise planned for 1 to 20 March and the registration of candidates for the provincial and district council elections, as well as Wolesi Jirga elections in Ghazni planned for 1 to 15 March.

Edited by Thomas Ruttig

(1) According to article 73 of the electoral law, the application for presidential candidacy should include the following:

• Name and specific address
• A copy of the document that proves his/her identity 
• Verified copy of educational documents as mentioned in this law.
•  Information on non-conviction, age, health status, movable and immovable properties, permanent and current residence addresses, latest place of employment and other instances stated in this law. 
• List of names, number of the voter registration cards and the fingerprints of one hundred thousand voters, from a minimum of twenty provinces, at least two percent from each province
• Provision of official document of resignation from the government positions pursuant to the provisions of the law. 
• Provide the names of two eligible vice-presidents, who fulfill the conditions set forth in this law. 

(2) In 2009, Foruzan Fana and Shahla Atta ran. The former, widow of minister Dr Abdul Rahman, who had been assassinated in 2002, scored best, ending on seventh place with 0.47 per cent of the total valid vote (see AAN analysis here). The IEC did not provide any reasons for the disqualification of the only female candidate in 2014, Khadija Ghaznawi,  but generally (there were other disqualifications) cited failure to meet registration requirements and having dual citizenship (see AAN’s report here).

(3) Article 38 of the electoral law reads:

• A person may nominate himself/herself for the presidency, who meets the following requirements:
  • Shall be an Afghan citizen, a Muslim and born to Afghan parents and shall not have the citizenship of another country.
  • Shall not be less than 40 years of age on the day of candidacy.
  • Shall not have been convicted of crimes against humanity and felony or deprived of civil rights by the court.
  • Shall not have been elected as a president or vice- president for more than two terms.
• The vice-presidents shall also meet the requirements mentioned in clause (1) of this article.

(4) Article 74 of the electoral law says:

• The Commission is obliged to publish the preliminary list of candidates soon after the completion of the candidacy period.
  • The persons, who may have objections to the preliminary list of the candidates, may submit their objections to the Central Complaints Commission within a maximum of two weeks following the publication of the list. These objections shall be addressed in compliance with the relevant procedure and this decision shall be final.
  • Once all the objections are addressed by the Central Complaints Commission, the final list of candidates shall be published by the Commission. This list shall be unchangeable.
  • The Commission is obliged to display the final list of candidates at the polling centres on the Election Day.

(5) Article 75 of the electoral law reads: 

•  In case a candidate withdraws from his/her candidacy, he/she is obliged to inform the Commission in writing prior to the date determined in the electoral calendar.
•  In case a candidate withdraws from his/her candidacy or dies after the date determined in the electoral calendar or if he/she is disqualified by the Complaints Commission, the votes related to him/her shall not be counted during counting of the votes. 
•  Only the deposit money of those candidates would be returned, who have withdrawn or died within the period of time determined in the electoral calendar.

(6) Source: Terms of reference of the joint committee of 2019 presidential candidates, which includes 17 presidential tickets, except President Ghani’s (AAN has seen a copy).  The committee, which they also call the Council for Collaboration of the 2019 Presidential elections, has been formed after candidate nomination ended. The term of reference sets the following objectives for the committee or council: a) to facilitate consultation and taking joint stance regarding the instances pertaining to the integrity of the election process; b) to prevent illegal interference and influence by the government and other institutions in the election affairs; c) to forge coordination among candidates and different electoral teams about the necessary electoral reform, as well as in working with the relevant commissions; and d) to observe the election process. It issued a statement on 2 February saying that the council had approved a proposed procedure on preventing the abuse of government resources, authorities and facilities for election and political campaigning, which sets out “binding moral limits.” The statement said that majority of candidates had approved the procedure and officially sent it to the presidential office. The statement also said that the council had discussed a second document, which is a draft proposal on electoral reforms (AAN has seen both documents). 

The Italian Lightning II are involved in their third deployment to Decimomannu airbase. Six ItAF F-35As out of the eight currently in Italy (two more ones are at Luke Air Force Base in the U.S.) [...]

“AOPA estimates that more than 2,000 airports—home bases to more than 28,600 aircraft—are located within the area’s lowest airspace contour.” GPS has become increasingly important to our lives. Not only do Waze, Uber, and many [...]

Long live the Legacy Hornet! On the very same day the U.S. Navy bid farewell to its last operational “Legacy Hornets” at NAS Oceana, Virginia, the U.S. Marine Corps Marine Aircraft Group (MAG) 11, 3rd Marine [...]

will take place on Tuesday, 19 February (09:00-12:30 and 14:30-18:30) 2019 in Brussels.

Organisations or interest groups who wish to apply for access to the European Parliament will find the relevant information below.

Further information
Watch the meeting
Access rights for interest group representatives
Eschange of views on 'Security situation in the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait'
Source : © European Union, 2019 - EP

EDA Chief Executive Jorge Domecq and Hans-Werner Grenzhäuser, the Athena Administrator, have signed an arrangement renewing the framework for future cooperation between EDA and Athena.

The Cooperation Arrangement signed on 1 February 2019 aims at replacing the previous arrangement which was signed on 27 February 2015 and was valid for a limited period. It offers the option for any CSDP Operation/Mission Commander to call upon EDA to provide technical and overall administrative support for their most complex procurement procedures. The full text of the arrangement is available here.

Under the previous arrangement, the Agency has supported the EU Training Mission in Mali for the procurement in Europe of a medical incinerator between May 2015 and February 2016. EDA also supported operation EUFOR ALTHEA in Bosnia and Herzegovina for a cost-benefit analysis of camp management in the Sarajevo Camp Butmir from July to October 2015.

In addition, the Agency supports CSDP military operations and missions with other projects as well as contracted support pre-mission solutions. On the project side this has so far included cyber awareness seminars, maritime surveillance, personnel management as well as management of geospatial information. Contracted support reaches from satellite communications to wider logistics support. 

This has already been the case for CSDP military operations in the Central African Republic (EUFOR RCA and later EUTM RCA), the Mediterranean Sea (EUNAVFOR MED operation Sophia), Bosnia and Herzegovina (EUFOR Althea), Mali (EUTM Mali), Somalia (EUTM Somalia and EUNAVFOR Atalanta). 

Most recently, EDA also started supporting the newly established Military Planning and Conduct Capability (MPCC) with contracted communication services, and it is supporting CSDP civilian missions as well.
 

The Athena Mechanism

Athena is the mechanism established to administer the financing of the common costs of European Union operations having military or defence implications governed by Council Decision 2015/528/CFSP. The Council Decision allows for arrangements to be negotiated with Union bodies to facilitate procurement and/or financial aspects of mutual support in operations in the most cost-effective manner.
 

More information: 

• Cooperation Arrangement signed on 1 February 2019 (full text)
• Support to Operations (EDA brochure)

 

The European Defence Agency has just concluded multiple framework contracts with Global Helicopter Service GMBH, Elitaliana S.R.L. and Starlite Aviation Operations Ltd. for the provision of fixed and rotary wings medical evacuation services in the context of EDA’s Support of Operations. The contracts run until January 2023 for a maximum value of 120 million Euro. 

In national and multinational operations, the provision of In-theatre aeromedical evacuation services is often a challenge. In many cases, capabilities are not available from Member States and outsourcing is necessary to provide air medical evacuation services through private companies. Experience shows that contracting on the spot under time pressure is mostly not a cost-effective solution. Having in place ready-to-use arrangements is very beneficial to ensure immediate availability of services, whilst equally reducing the administrative burden and achieving economies of scale.

The overall purpose of the AIRMEDEVAC project is to efficiently and cost effectively provide contributing members with an option to order ‘ready-to-use’ commercially available In-theatre aeromedical evacuation services through EDA. The 4 contributing members (CM) today are: Austria, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. The project is open to all EDA participating Member States, EU entities as well as third states having an administrative arrangement with EDA.

The contributing members have mandated EDA through a Project Arrangement (PA) to manage the project including the negotiation of Multiple Framework Contracts (FWCs) and service requests on their behalf. The contracts concluded today are the result of a close cooperation dating back to 2016 between EDA, the EU Military Staff and the contributing members to define the requirements and evaluate the services required. EDA has been in the lead of the process up to the conclusion of the contract and will continue to be fully responsible for its management throughout the implementation. 

The contractors offer services to evacuate patients from the point of injury to the initial Medical Treatment Facility (Forward AIRMEDEVAC) or to transfer them between in-theatre Medical Treatment Facilities (Tactical AIRMEDEVAC) in the context of national and/or international defence and/or security operations. Services include access to a wide range of Rotary and Fixed-Wing aircraft in Europe and Africa to meet a variety of operational needs, both abroad and at home. 

The project constitutes an efficient pay-per-use solution that does not impose any binding financial commitments beyond services requested. It is quick and flexible and will reduce the administrative burden for members who do not have to run their own bidding processes since they can rely on the EDA framework contracts.
 

More information: 

• AIRMEDEVAC factsheet
• EDA brochure support to operations

MH-6 Little Bird and MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters involved in a urban training exercise in downtown Los Angeles. U.S. Army helicopters are conducting realistic military urban training in the greater Los Angeles and Long Beach [...]

Chinese QBU-88 Designated Marksman Rifle

“Europe for Aviation” is the theme around which European aviation organisations working to implement the Single European Sky (SES) will gather at this year’s World ATM Congress, from 12 to 14 March in Madrid, Spain.

Strong collaboration between European aviation organisations (civil and military) is proving key to generating growth for the industry and to meeting the passenger demand for safer, smarter, greener and more seamless air travel, in line with the EU Aviation Strategy. Over the course of the 3-day Congress, these organisations will come together to show how through collaboration they can go much further in tackling pressing challenges, such as air traffic delays and congestion, drone integration, digital transformation and cyber security.

The “Europe for Aviation” stand and theatre (#849 and #1151) will host a wide range of debates, presentations and guided walking tours, illustrating the collaboration in action between European aviation organisations working to implement SES, namely the European Commission, EUROCONTROL, SESAR Joint Undertaking (SESAR JU), SESAR Deployment Manager (SESAR DM), European Aviation Safety Agency, European Defence Agency, Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA), and EUROCAE. In doing so, the organisations will show how between them they cover the full project management cycle from policy and funding to research and deployment.

Look out for:

• Official opening by Director General of DG MOVE, Henrik Hololei with the Executive Directors/Director Generals of each of the participating organisations.
• Single European Sky Awards ceremony (#SESAwards) followed by a networking drink (12 March, 17:00).
• Panel debate sessions on the looming capacity crunch, global interoperability, civil-military collaboration, standardisation, and the future of the Single European Sky.
• Technical sessions on U-space and drone integration, communications navigation and surveillance (CNS), datalink services implementation, digital transformation and cybersecurity.
• A series of SESAR walking tours on the latest technological advances underway by SESAR partners, and their status in terms of research and development, and deployment.
• Dedicated stand for networking with SES partners, featuring interactive and virtual reality experiences.

Register as exhibitor visitor at the Congress and gain free access to the “Europe for Aviation” stand and theatre.

Follow #EuropeForAviation for updates from: 
@Transport_EU @eurocontrol @SESAR_JU @SESAR_DM @EASA ‏@EUDefenceAgency @INEA_EU @EUROCAE1

 

Europe for Aviation

Europe for Aviation” is the theme around which European aviation organisations working to implement the Single European Sky will gather at this year’s World ATM Congress.  Over the course of the 3-day Congress, these organisations will come together to show how through collaboration they can go much further in tackling pressing challenges, such as air traffic delays and congestion, drone integration, digital transformation and cyber security.

 

The end of an era: “Tonka” have returned to RAF Marham from their last tour of duty. On Jan. 31, 2019, the RAF launched the final operational sortie of the Tornado GR4. The aircraft (ZA601/066 [...]

Interesting images of the 180th Fighter Wing’s Vipers flying over KSC. During the cold winter months, the 180th Fighter Wing’s F-16s belonging to the Ohio Air National Guard, based at Toledo Air National Guard Base, [...]

Here are some shots of the F-35B operating at sea in “Bomb Truck” configuration. F-35B Lightning II aircraft, attached to the F-35B detachment of the “Flying Tigers” of Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 262 (Reinforced), [...]

Under the auspices of the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the Romanian Ministry of National Defence, in cooperation with the European Defence Agency (EDA), organises a conference on the theme of “Capability-Driven Defence Research and Innovation”.

The conference will take place on 26 March 2019 in Bucharest at the Palace of the Parliament venue. 

High-level representatives from Ministries of Defence, defence research centres, industry and the European institutions will discuss the present and future opportunities as well as challenges of the Capability Driven Defence Research. The event will showcase the new prioritisation instruments for defence research, technology and innovation, highlight the fusion that can be achieved on research priorities at National and European level and provide an update on the latest developments on the European Defence Fund. Moreover, the conference will provide to participants insights and lessons learned from some of the most successful R&T collaborative research projects which have been implemented under the framework of EDA.

A formal invitation, including the full programme will be available in the coming weeks. 

Inquiries regarding the event should be directed to: conference2019@dpa.ro

The conference agenda is available here.

The conference registration is available here.