Afghan Hazaras look to polls, Iran

"Most Hazara people know that Iran supported other people - the Aryan groups, mostly the Tajiks - during the jihad," she says. So while some clerics and politicians are spouting a pro-Iranian line, most Hazaras remain loyal to the government in Kabul. "We haven't forgotten that Iran wants to have a lot of influence here, so I think it will take a little time. We have to raise awareness and not be used by other people."

Kazemian, one of 68 candidates for parliament from Bamiyan, spent most of her life in Iran as a refugee. Few Hazara refugees, she says, have fond memories of their Shiite brethren in Iran.

"If the Iranians had treated the Afghan refugees better in Iran - if they had let Hazaras go on to get university educations like the Afghans do in Pakistan - then the Afghans would leave Iran with better memories of the kindness of Iran," says Kazemian. "But the Iranians don't do this. They like the Aryan people, like the Tajiks or the Pashtuns, better than they like us. We have the same religion, but we have a problem with our eyes and our nose."

Yet during the anti-Soviet war of resistance - or jihad, as many Afghans call it - Iran provided strong and reliable support for Hazara political parties. Hazara leaders such as Karim Khalili, head of Bamiyan's ruling Hizb-e Wahadat party, made their homes in the Iranian border city of Meshhad, and maintained close ties with Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security.

These past ties lead many Afghan politicians to suspect that Iran's influence in Afghanistan may be expanding, just as it has expanded in that other American war zone, Iraq.

"The Iranians are using the lack of confidence between Tajiks and Pashtuns and they want Hazaras to take more power in government," says Najib Fahim, a deputy minister of veteran's affairs, who recently returned from a two-year stint as head of Afghanistan's consulate in Meshhad, Iran.

"We Sunnis are a dispersed majority; they are an organized minority," says Mr. Fahim, himself a Tajik. "Most of the directors of new aid agencies are Shias. Most of the top students at Kabul University are Shias." He points to a possible "Iraq scenario" where Shiites dominate the political process.

In the towns and villages of the Hazarajat, all this talk of Shiite power sounds a bit far-fetched. After all, there isn't a single paved road in Bamiyan, no reliable electricity, and no factories to create jobs. If this is power, Hazaras say, we don't want it.

"We don't want a parliament that is aligned with any faction," says Hayatullah Ahmedi, a tailor in the capital city of Bamiyan.

"We have people from Bamiyan in Karzai's cabinet, those are people who took part in the civil war. They have guns. We don't expect them to fulfill any promises," says Mr. Ahmedi. "But still, we think they should do something for people."

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