RFE/RL, 25 September 2019
Two quotes from AAN’s Thomas Ruttig – besides Chatham House’s Hameed Hakimi, and International Crisis Group consultant Graeme Smith:
“The political elites were unable to come up with a viable challenger [to the two NUG heads],” says Thomas Ruttig, co-director of the independent Kabul-based Afghanistan Analysts Network.
As a result, Ruttig says, Afghanistan’s political system has become “stagnant.”
[Well, I would say the other way around – that the system is stagnant results in no really new options.]
(…)
“Ghani is targeting two key groups, the youth, through a social-media campaign, and community leaders,” says Ruttig. “Abdullah has concentrated on the usual ethno-political alliance building, mainly in the mujahedin camp.”
Revisions:
This article was last updated on 9 Mar 2020
