About the Report

This report builds on several initiatives by the United States 

Institute of Peace (USIP) to explore how a growing youth 

population and an increasing number of young political 

leaders are reshaping Afghan politics. Drawing on 160 

interviews with politically active youth, university students, 

and young journalists in seven of Afghanistan’s thirty-four 

provinces—Kabul, Kandahar, Khost, Herat, Balkh, Bamiyan, 

and Nangarhar—from June to November 2013, this report 

complements a focused ethnographic study by Anna Larson 

and Noah Coburn of three communities in and around Kabul 

city published by USIP in January 2014. 

About the Authors

Gran Hewad is the cofounder of the Afghan Peace and 

Development Studies Organization and a member of the 

political organization Afghanistan 1400. He was a researcher 

with the Kabul-based Afghanistan Analysts Network from 2009 

to 2014. Casey Garret Johnson, a USIP senior program officer, 

has lived and worked in Afghanistan since 2008 conducting 

research on subnational politics and the insurgency.

2301 Constitution Ave., NW • Washington, DC 20037 • 202.457.1700 • fax 202.429.6063

Special Report 344 APRIL 2014

© 2014 by the United States Institute of Peace. 

All rights reserved.

Contents

Introduction 2

What Is an “Afghan Youth” Anyway? 2

Don’t Call It a Party 3

2014 Elections 9

Transition 12

Beyond Transition 13

Gran Hewad and Casey Garret Johnson

A Rough Guide 

to Afghan Youth 

Politics

Summary

•	 The growth of subnational youth political organizations since 2001 is in many cases synonymous with the emergence of a civil society in Afghanistan. Youth see civil society organizations as one route to political power.

•	 Youth politics in 2013 is still deeply tied to old-guard political networks. In many provinces, 

power brokers use youth organizations to maintain political control. Continuing dominance 

of the old guard will likely prevent the emergence of a youth bloc or a youth vote in the 

upcoming elections. 

•	 Although youth activists recognize their demographic weight, they view themselves as a 

transitional generation—and see their sons and daughters as the first truly new political 

generation.

•	 The gap between youth organizations in Kabul and those in the provinces is large and both 

physical and conceptual. In the capital the focus, not surprisingly, is on influencing policy. 

Kabul-based organizations that receive the majority of international attention act more as 

pressure groups and think tanks than political parties. Kabul-based youth-led parties that 

function as such have so far established only a limited presence in provinces.

•	 Youth organizations based in provincial capitals are less concerned with policy and more 

concerned with basic outreach and service delivery. These groups are composed of individuals 

with education and worldviews similar to those of their national counterparts but struggle to 

establish connections, either upward to national parties or downward to the districts. 

•	 More youth are running for provincial council seats than in 2009, but many of these are seen 

as proxies of provincial power brokers. Youth perceptions of transition often reflect those of 

the greater population: Some feel that transition is needed and will go forward with fewer 

negative effects on security and livelihoods than speculated on in the media; others speak of 

a return to civil war as a matter of when rather than if. 

United States Institute of Peace www.usip.org

SPECIAL REPORT
2 USIP.ORG • SPECIAL REPORT 344

Introduction

The various types of emerging youth political parties, networks, and organizations throughout Afghanistan today, as well as the status of existing youth wings of old-guard political 

parties are critical to the future of the country and how the transition unfolds. How are 

youth organizing and mobilizing and for what purpose? How deep are their networks? What 

are their aspirations and plans for the April 2014 presidential and provincial council elections? How do they view transition? What type of support do they need going forward? How 

do youth politics differ between provinces and between the center and periphery? Most 

important, what is their relationship to the old-guard political elite and provincial power 

brokers?

What Is an “Afghan Youth” Anyway?

In Afghanistan, youth is an expansive term. Respondents up to thirty-five years of age consistently self-identified as youth (jawan/zwan) during interviews and were apt to speak of 

youth more as a state of mind than a stage of life. If the international community is guilty 

of conflating youth politics in Afghanistan with progressive politics, this is partly because 

many Afghan youth—especially those who regularly interact with internationals—speak 

in these terms as well. When asked for a definition, one interviewee from Kabul province 

responded that a youth was 

a person or group of people who think about the future of the country. If a person 

is young and backward thinking, we do not consider that person a youth. But if 

someone’s age is not more than 30 years and still thinks for the future of the country 

and has a youthful thinking then he/she is considered youth from our perspective 

despite the age limit.1

Respondents in Herat consistently referred to former governor Daud Shah Saba as young, 

despite his being forty-nine years old, because of his progressive politics, technocratic 

approach to governance, and consistent support to youth networks during his term. The 

same interviewees lamented that the Herat provincial council was devoid of youth leaders 

because the chairman of the council, Wahed Qatali, despite being under thirty-five, has 

old-school politics and rose to power through family ties to provincial strongman Ismael 

Khan. The same is true in the south, where the strongest individual to emerge since 2001 

has been Brigadier General Abdul Raziq, the thirty-four-year-old chief of police of Kandahar 

province. Raziq is emblematic not of progressive youth politics but of a new generation of 

strongman leadership.

We define youth as those who were too young to actively participate in the anti-Soviet 

jihad—either as fighters or fundraisers for mujahideen military parties or on the side of the 

communist government. By this definition, the term youth includes those well into their 

mid-thirties.2 It does not exclude youth from association with the old-guard parties—such 

as Jamiat-e Islami, Hizb-e Islami, Junbesh-e Milli—because many youth are currently 

members of the youth wings of these parties or are the sons and daughters of their leading members. It does, however, in many cases put them outside the leadership structure 

of these parties, which is a negative in terms of gaining actual decision-making power, but 

a positive in that they are not directly implicated in some of the abuses of these parties, 

particularly those committed during the 1992–96 civil war.

Afghan youth are thus defined here by the transitional nature of their generation. They 

are tied to the politics and the environment of the Taliban and pre-Taliban eras (even if they 

spent this time in exile) but have come of age in a vastly different (though often no less 

violent) post-2001 world.

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily 

reflect the views of the United States Institute of Peace, 

which does not advocate specific policy positions.

To request permission to photocopy or reprint materials, 

e-mail: permissions@usip.org

About the Institute

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, 

nonpartisan institution established and funded by Congress. 

Its goals are to help prevent and resolve violent conflicts, 

promote postconflict peacebuilding, and increase conflict 

management tools, capacity, and intellectual capital 

worldwide. The Institute does this by empowering others 

with knowledge, skills, and resources, as well as by its direct 

involvement in conflict zones around the globe.

Board of Directors

Stephen J. Hadley, (Chair), Principal, RiceHadleyGates, 

LLC, Washington, DC • George E. Moose (Vice Chair), 

Adjunct Professor of Practice, The George Washington University, Washington, DC • Judy Ansley, Former Assistant to 

the President and Deputy National Security Advisor under 

George W. Bush, Washington, DC • Eric Edelman, Hertog 

Distinguished Practitioner in Residence, Johns Hopkins 

School of Advanced International Studies, Washington, DC 

• Joseph Eldridge, University Chaplain and Senior Adjunct 

Professorial Lecturer, School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC • Kerry Kennedy, President, 

Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, 

Washington, DC • Ikram U. Khan, President, Quality Care 

Consultants, LLC., Las Vegas, NV • Stephen D. Krasner, 

Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations at 

Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA • John A. Lancaster, 

Former Executive Director, International Council on

Independent Living, Potsdam, NY • Jeremy A. Rabkin, 

Professor of Law, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA

• J. Robinson West, Chairman, PFC Energy, Washington, 

DC • Nancy Zirkin, Executive Vice President, Leadership 

Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Washington, DC 

Members Ex Officio

John Kerry, Secretary of State • Chuck Hagel, Secretary of 

Defense • Gregg F. Martin, Major General, U.S. Army; President, National Defense University • Kristin Lord, Acting 

President, United States Institute of Peace (nonvoting) 
USIP.ORG • SPECIAL REPORT 344	 3

Given this history, understanding young political actors and their decision-making 

processes is still very much a matter of understanding their family. Tribe and ethnicity 

may come into play at some point, but often only secondarily. Like many social aspects 

of Afghanistan, the immediate and extended family unit are a key determinant of how 

youth think and act politically. Where the family stands on issues of education (secular or 

religious); where it aligned itself politically during the jihad, Taliban, and post-2001 eras 

(pro- or antigovernment); and the livelihood consequences of these decisions remain key 

determinants for youth involvement in politics today. As one respondent noted, “If the 

youth cannot make a simple and small decision within their family, how can we expect them 

to politically represent the community?” 3

Youth in Kabul whose fathers are prominent old-guard politicians often get positions—if 

not always political power—because of their family ties, even as they lead the young elite 

political movements attempting to dissociate themselves from their fathers’ politics. One 

Kabul-based youth explained it this way: 

We put aside our family backgrounds on some issues and at some times, but this family 

history is still a factor, even for the most educated and progressive youth. At the end 

of the day, the son of Jamiati is still a Jamiati, like the son of communist is still the 

son of a communist.4

In this way, issues of honor, family legacy, and communal duty—terms used most often 

to describe tribal or traditional values—remain in play for the youth. Whether conservative 

or liberal in their politics, Afghan youth are pulled between two eras, particularly as technology-driven communication and direct exposure to the West drives a broader worldview. 

This is one of the fundamental reasons that youth political movements at both the national 

and provincial level remain fragmented and will likely line up behind an older generation 

of power brokers in the coming elections. As one interviewee in Kandahar explained of 

the current balance of power, “In our province, the younger generation is slowly gaining 

decision-making power within their families and in their immediate villages, but the youth 

still have almost no say in political matters at the provincial level due to the dominance of 

power brokers and government strongmen mainly from the older generation.” 5

Given the conflict between inherited values and status quo power dynamics on one hand 

and contemporary events, education, and exposure on the other, many youth organizations 

spend a good deal of time and energy on internal debates over policy and tactics. What 

actual say youth will have in the statebuilding process is largely unknown at this point 

because internal debates are ongoing.

Don’t Call It a Party

After more than thirty years of war waged in large part by political-military parties, it is 

no surprise that the youth of today—particularly in the provinces—shy away from describing their movements as parties.6 Even youth members of old-guard political parties were 

quick to admit during interviews the negative impact that political parties have had on the 

stability of the country over the last three decades. Anecdotally, youth membership in these 

old-guard parties is in decline for a number of reasons: real and perceived corruption, underperformance, inability to live up to religious standards,7 lack of autonomy from foreign 

funders,8 and the nature of an Afghan political system—in which political power is won on 

the basis of personal connections, patronage, and service provision rather than on the ability of parties themselves to organize voting blocs based on interests and policies. This latter 

point is especially true in a place like Kandahar, where one youth group leader remarked, 

Everything here is done by tribal leaders not political parties. The population of 

Kandahar has been divided on a family and tribal basis—the Karzai’s and the Achekzai 
4 USIP.ORG • SPECIAL REPORT 344

and the Alkozai—and each have their own leaders and decision makers over every 

village, and the political parties have not been able to do anything for the youth in 

the province.9

Of the seven provinces where interviews were conducted for this study, youth wing 

membership of old-guard parties was lowest in Khost, Kandahar, and Herat. According to an 

interviewee from Khost, 

Political parties have no plans that would mobilize the youth and provide them with 

political opportunities. Political parties have got only representatives in provinces but 

no activities like in Kabul. They do not care about the ideas they receive from provinces. 

This is the same for both the old political parties and the new political parties like Haq 

wa Adalat that don’t have influence in remote provinces like ours.10

The notable exception to the overall decline in youth wing membership for old-guard parties is Junbesh-e Milli. Junbesh was established in the early 1990s by the Uzbek commander 

Abdul Rashid Dostum, currently the first vice-presidential candidate on Ashraf Ghani’s 2014 

presidential ticket. The Junbesh youth wing maintains a strong, ethnically- based recruiting 

network in the north among the Uzbek and Turkmen communities, which are largely driven 

by communal fears of the return of the Taliban and are under the charismatic leadership of 

Dostum, who is perceived by many from the northeast to be the main defender of his Uzbek 

ethnic group.

Nationwide, the youth who do continue to join these old-guard parties do so in part 

because the parties continue to offer monetary incentives, job opportunities, and scholarships at a time when the two most commonly cited needs were education and income. One 

interviewee from Kabul province explained the various factors youth will assess before 

deciding to join a political party: 

Youth look for the achievements of a political party before joining the party. Others 

join because of their family background—they join because their father or the whole 

family belongs to a specific party. Another group of youth have no interest in the 

achievements of a political party or if their family were members, they are only looking 

at the material benefits they will gain after joining the party.11

That youth involvement with old-guard parties is primarily a transactional relationship is 

underscored by the fact that the most vocal critics of old-guard political parties are often 

youth wing members themselves.

Given the stigma attached to political parties, both the idealistic younger generation and 

their opportunistic elders have distanced themselves from such labels, preferring instead to 

form youth societies, associations, movements, organizations, and networks. Youth-led or 

youth-centric political parties established in the last half-decade have often gone to great 

lengths to distance themselves from the party stigma by focusing heavily on charity-type 

outreach activities and public service. These groups nonetheless act and think politically—

though not always coherently. 

A young journalist from Balkh placed youth today into three categories: 

First, you have unaligned youth; second, youth who are aligned with a political party, 

a jihadi leader, or some other type of ethnic group; and in the third category you 

have some talented young people with a good understanding of politics. This last 

group considers the past and current political leaders as ‘dealers’ [and] not as good 

politicians.12

On the other side of the country, a student at Khost University made a similar distinction: 

Sixty-eight percent of the population is youth, but 58 percent of these are being used 

by warlords or political authorities or parties, only 10 percent participate in politics 

using their own minds and their own talents and are actually serving the country.13

In the absence of a few strong old-guard parties able to attract the young generation, 

and without as yet a coherent grassroots youth movement, the youth political landscape 

is, like Afghan politics more generally, highly localized and dominated by context-specific 

patron-client relationships. In the words of Afghan political analyst S. Reza Kazemi, what 

exists today is a “scattered and largely manipulated youth landscape in Afghanistan.” 14

That youth involvement with 

old-guard parties is primarily 

a transactional relationship is 

underscored by the fact that the 

most vocal critics of old-guard 

political parties are often youth 

wing members themselves.
USIP.ORG • SPECIAL REPORT 344	 5

National

Given this level of fragmentation, youth political movements resist easy definition or 

categorization. At the Kabul level, this report identifies at least four basic types of youth 

political movements outside the standard youth wing model of registered old-guard political parties. The caveat is that these are broad definitions and many movements do not fall 

cleanly into one category or another and that even the strongest national parties are struggling to establish roots in even a handful of key provinces outside Kabul.

1. Those established since 2001 and led by old-guard politicians aimed at attracting younger 

members with pro-reform agendas. These offer greater decision-making power than is given 

to youth wings of old-guard parties. The most notable example at the national level is 

Rights and Justice (Haq wa Adalat).

Rights and Justice, formed in 2011, is recognized as a pro-reform, technocratic party 

and is led by former Afghan ambassador to Pakistan Sardar Mohammed Roshan. Hanif Atmar, 

former minister of interior, heads its political committee and is the de facto figurehead. The 

party’s leadership ranks are filled with former members of parliament, diplomats, and human 

rights and civil society activists. Although the party has struggled to establish a serious 

network in the provinces, it has areas of support in Herat, Farah, Balkh, Helmand, Kunduz, 

Khost, Laghman, and Badghis and opened an office in Kandahar in 2013. As of early February 

2014, the party was publicly backing Ashraf Ghani’s presidential ticket.

From the outset, Rights and Justice has attracted a younger demographic largely because 

youth participated in the party’s formation and stood against the conventional approach of 

having a separate youth wing. Youth party members say the integrated structure has given 

them more decision-making power. In the first intraparty elections of 2011, youth won about 

one-third of the central council seats and were active in all committees—in many cases 

occupying a clear majority of seats on the (old-guard-headed) political and communication 

committees. At the subnational level, Rights and Justice’s provincial leadership differs from 

region to region. In the west, north, northeast, and central regions, these councils are led by 

youth, whereas they are led mostly by the older generation in the south, southeast, and east.

Today, Rights and Justice reports that more than half of its members are youths. Fortyseven of the seventy-five candidates for the 2014 provincial council elections affiliated 

with the party, according to one member of the central committee, are youths. About five 

members in the Kabul office, including two members of the central council, are working to 

empower youth members and candidates, though no specific committee or program for this 

task has been established. One member involved in providing support to youth candidates 

was realistic in his assessment of intraparty hierarchies when he admitted that the old guard 

was still very much in charge and that their ideas and positions were deferred to in a sign 

of respect.

Critics of Rights and Justice say that in attempting to have a new agenda with the same 

old leadership, it tries to have it both ways and so, ultimately, has neither. Supporters say 

that it is the most pragmatic model in that it balances the need for reform against societal 

realities and Afghan realpolitik.15 What this balance looked like in early December of 2013 

was stated support of the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with the United States by 

Hanif Atmar, but no concerted political action by the party itself.

2. Those established since 2001 by old-guard leaders that have transferred control of their 

central committees to the younger generation. Solidarity of Afghanistan is one example of a 

party that has made the transition from an old-guard party—that is, formed and led by 

former communists and mujahideen-era commanders and activists—to a party whose leadership is largely made up of youth. Founded in 2004, the party was controlled by old-guard 

leaders until 2009. In 2009, it supported Hamid Karzai for president, a position that widened 
6 USIP.ORG • SPECIAL REPORT 344

the internal rifts over leadership. Within the party, it was the youth wing that staked out a 

more forceful, leftist, nonviolent, and anti–foreign troop position and argued that the party 

could not support a presidential candidate as long as foreign troops were occupying the 

country. This position contrasted with the more pragmatic leadership of the old generation, 

which saw support for Karzai as necessary from a patronage standpoint.

In the spring of 2010, Solidarity held its second congress in the party’s six-year history. 

Dawud Razmak, a thirty-one-year-old medical student, was elected as party chairman.16

Party leaders then traveled to the provinces advocating for more youth representation in 

provincial leadership councils, a position that has been widely embraced. At the national 

level, Solidarity claims that about 70 percent of its forty-seven-member central congress is 

today composed of youth.17 Old leaders still play an advisory role, but party control seems 

to be firmly in the hands of younger generation leaders, who remain inflexible in their anti–

foreign troop stance. In late October 2013, Chairman Razmak stated, “We believe that 

elections in the presence of the international forces are just a scenario that is going to be 

organized for the election of a puppet president. That is why we are going to boycott the 

presidential elections.” Razmak went on to say that the party would not boycott the provincial council elections and that five Solidarity party members were running for provincial 

council seats in five different provinces.18

If anything, Solidarity has weakened under the control of the younger generation. The 

decision to boycott the presidential elections is likely to have an adverse impact on provincial council candidates, whose ability to fund-raise is often linked to political alliances 

(essentially joint campaigning) with better-funded presidential candidates.19 As of early 

December 2013, Solidarity had struck an anti-BSA stance and was supporting Karzai’s refusal 

to sign the agreement. Solidarity is a reminder that while youth political movements may 

be progressive in their desire to break with traditional patronage politics, the positions they 

stake out are not necessarily pro-Western.

3. Those established since 2001 by youth whose agenda is outreach to the provinces and service delivery. Among the national youth-led parties established after the fall of the Taliban, 

Wadan Afghanistan claims to have the broadest reach and most active provincial councils, 

particularly in the Pashtun south and east of other Kabul-based parties.20 Although it continues to struggle against the political party stigma and general mistrust of outside entities 

by potential supporters in the provinces, it appears to have developed more grassroots support in the last half decade, particularly among Pashtuns, than either Rights and Justice or 

Solidarity of Afghanistan.

Wadan Afghanistan’s ideology dates back to the early 1990s. As the country sank deeper 

into civil war, a group of students from various faculties at Nangarhar University began to 

publicly demand a paradigm shift to a new, non-mujahideen, nontribal, non-Islamist type 

of political system.21 Wadan sought a democratic system that prioritized outreach to rural 

youth and had the goal of more direct decision making for the periphery in national politics. 

This core idea was shelved when the Taliban took control of the country in 1996.

Thirteen years later, the idea of Wadan Afghanistan was resurrected by a student at Kandahar University named Abdul Ahad Mohammadyar after he was beaten by pro-Karzai militias 

for campaigning for Ashraf Ghani in the 2009 presidential elections.22 Thirty-five individuals 

from around the country, all of them between eighteen and fifty years of age, began to discuss 

taking the core principles of Wadan and forming a platform and a party.

Today, Wadan Afghanistan remains unregistered but self-identifies as a political party. Its 

thirteen-member national leadership council is composed solely of youth. Committee heads 

and leaders of its six provincial offices are all also drawn exclusively from the younger genSolidarity is a reminder that 

while youth political movements 

may be progressive in their 

desire to break with traditional 

patronage politics, the 

positions they stake out are not 

necessarily pro-Western.
USIP.ORG • SPECIAL REPORT 344	 7

eration. According to Abdul Ahad Mohammadyar, Wadan’s main focus is rural areas along a 

Maoist archetype with the fundamental difference that it does not support land redistribution 

reforms. “Because the majority of the population lives in the periphery, we prioritize working 

with them ... This is the biggest difference between Wadan and other parties.”23

Given both Taliban and power broker control in the areas where Wadan Afghanistan is 

strongest, the party is still struggling to develop networks in truly rural district settings. 

Wadan attracts the type of university-educated and provincial center–based youth who 

perhaps already belong to another youth organization. These individuals are eager to do 

positive work within their communities but lack basic funds and are equally wary of getting 

drawn into a patron-client relationship with a local power broker or with an international 

organization or funding body. As one member explained, “I joined [Wadan] voluntarily 

because the strategies and agendas are not made in foreign countries and its leaders and 

key people do not receive money from abroad. And, most importantly, because the party 

doesn’t discriminate based on tribe or ethnicity.” 24

Wadan Afghanistan continues to prioritize activities in Pashtun periphery provinces. 

Although it will need to expand its reach to non-Pashtun areas if it wants to be viewed as 

something other than a new Afghan Millat, that it has been able to establish itself in Pashtun 

areas at all is significant given the comparatively high level of insularity, often violent patronclient politics, and level of insurgent control in these provinces.25 What remains to be seen is 

whether Wadan Afghanistan can seriously position itself not just as a youth outreach movement but also as a true political option for Pashtuns of all ages searching for an affiliation 

outside the standard dichotomy of the Taliban insurgency on the one hand or pro-government 

power broker networks on the other. As of early December 2013, Wadan leader Abdul Ahad 

Mohammadyar stated that the party was still trying to decide whether it would support a 

candidate or “cast a blank vote.”

4. Those established by the nation’s young political elite post-2001, which remain limited in 

size and reach and are chiefly concerned with driving policy at the national level. This is the 

subset that garners the greatest international attention, given the high levels of education 

among members, location in the capital, and presence of party members in the circles of 

the diplomatic community, mid-to upper-level Afghan government posts, and international 

organizations and media.

The primary examples are Afghanistan 1400, Afghanistan Analysis and Awareness (A3), and 

Afghanistan Forward. Afghanistan 1400 was established in December 2012 and is arguably the 

fastest growing of these urban elite parties.26 Its politics are progressive and its positions strong 

on rule of law, women’s rights, and supporting the gains of the last decade. However, Afghanistan 

1400 is not as much a party as a collection of individuals from a certain class and with a certain 

level of education. It does not, for instance, plan to support a single presidential candidate, and 

many of its members are likely to lead campaigns for a number of different candidates.

The same is generally true of A3, which will also not support a single candidate in the 

upcoming elections. The principal difference between A3 and other elite youth movements 

is its attempt to position itself more as a think tank than a party. Although it held a number 

of small outreach activities in and around the capital during the fall of 2013, its members are 

most often concerned with publishing pieces on current affairs.

If neither of these parties have the support to elect the next president of Afghanistan, they 

are nonetheless composed of the type of individuals who will manage presidential campaigns 

and are expected to occupy key positions—ministry spokesmen, deputy ministers, national 

security council advisors—in any new government. It is from this small group of individuals 

that a strong presidential candidate may emerge in 2019.

What remains to be seen is 

whether Wadan Afghanistan can 

seriously position itself not just 

as a youth outreach movement 

but also as a true political 

option for Pashtuns of all ages.
8 USIP.ORG • SPECIAL REPORT 344

Provincial

Although groups such as Rights and Justice, Solidarity of Afghanistan, and Wadan Afghanistan have provincial offices, the majority of politically active youth belong to provincial 

organizations with no links to national parties. At the provincial level, there are few political 

parties but a wide range of academies, societies, media organizations, and councils that are 

political in nature. As one member of a youth council in Kandahar remarked, “There are really 

two types of youth movements: Those established by youth themselves, and those established at the request of some older politician or power broker.”27 In Kandahar, Nangarhar, 

Balkh, and Herat, certain youth groups are widely recognized as under the control of power 

brokers. These include Shah Wali Karzai in Kandahar, Gul Agha Sherzai and Haji Zahir Qadir 

in Nangarhar, regional power broker Ismael Khan and charismatic cleric Mullah Mujib Rahman 

in Herat, and Atta Mohammed Nur in Balkh.28

Power broker-established youth groups are usually better funded than their counterparts. 

Also, they appear in some cases to have better ties downward to the district level, are often 

given access to armed men or connections to tribal leaders who straddle the insurgentgovernment divide, and can provide safe passage in volatile areas. Power brokers recognize 

the size of the youth demographic and its skill set—particularly its media savvy. In return, 

youth groups get small sums for their daily office expenditures, protection, and access to 

networks.29 The side effect of this relationship is that along with power broker support come 

power broker feuds and, more generally, a continuation of old-guard politics through the 

younger generation. As one interviewee from Nangarhar explained, “In Nangarhar, both [Gul 

Agha] Sherzai and Haji Zahir have their own youth groups, and these groups do what Sherzai and Zahir tell them. When Sherzai and Zahir argue, their groups take to the streets and 

protest against one another.” 30 So, even as jihad-era political parties lose influence among 

provincial youth, the old style patron-client politics continue within the new generation.

Independent youth groups rely on a range of funds: Many compete for international 

resources, most often for one-off projects. Some received more structured support from 

national civil society organizations, including the Sanayee Development Organization in 

Balkh and Faryab and the National Democratic Institute and United States Institute of 

Peace. Other groups relied on provincial line departments, such as the especially proactive 

Ministry of Counternarcotics, or the local private sector, such as the Azizi Bank branch in 

Kandahar. Both the ministry and private-sector funds were ad hoc and project based. In 

both cases, the lines between what the government or a business was funding and what was 

being funded by the power brokers controlling these entities were blurry.

Presently, the politics of government-controlled areas (Kabul and provincial capitals) differs sharply from the politics at the rural district level. The actual number of young Afghans 

inhabiting rural areas is unknown, and it may well be that the primary political expression 

in these areas is simply picking up a gun, becoming part of a grassroots religious movement, 

or joining a violent insurgent group like the Taliban or Hizb-e Islami (Gulbuddin)—groups 

that may espouse no coherent political agenda but seem the best way to reject the political 

status quo.

Religious

Although Islamist youth movements were outside the scope of the fieldwork conducted for 

this report, the research team was told repeatedly that outside Kabul some of the fastestgrowing youth political movements were religious. Further interviews with experts in Kabul 

supported if not confirmed this claim. Provinces like Nangarhar, Herat, and Badakshan are 

home to some of the best-funded, most organized, and fastest growing religiously-oriented 

youth political groups.

Provinces like Nangarhar, Herat, 

and Badakshan are home to 

some of the best-funded, most 

organized, and fastest growing 

religiously-oriented youth 

political groups.
USIP.ORG • SPECIAL REPORT 344	 9

According to Borhan Osman of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, the rise of young 

Islamist movements has occurred in part as a result of the political freedom that the international presence has ensured in the post-Taliban era. “These movements are unique in that 

they are more grassroots than in Afghanistan’s past, when you mostly had groups centered 

around Kabul University during the Jihad.” 31 If youth religious movements are so far proving 

to be more grassroots than their secular counterparts, they also have similar characteristics 

and face similar challenges, including reluctance to identify as political parties and a high 

level of diversity in policy and tactics between groups. According to Osman, three main 

Islamist political movements in Afghanistan have strong youth followings.

The fastest growing of these religious groups may now be Hizb ut-Tahrir. This UK-based 

pan-Islamist movement emerged in Afghanistan around 2006 and is considered the most 

uncompromising of the youth Islamist movements in Afghanistan. Followers believe that 

democracy is counter to Islam and so advocate against all forms of participation in Afghanistan’s system of government. Their rhetoric is the most bellicose of all youth Islamist movements, but they stop short of calling for violent action against the government. Outside 

Kabul, Hizb ut-Tahrir is strongest in Herat, Badakshan, Kapisa, Panjshir, and Parwan. Government security forces cracked down on Hizb ut-Tahrir before the 2009 presidential elections 

and may do so again in the run-up to the April elections.

Jamiat Islah (or Ikhwani/Muslim Brotherhood) movements follow the political Islam 

ideology of Hassan al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. In Afghanistan, Jamiat 

Islah is not registered as a political party, largely because its members are fearful of being 

targeted by the Taliban if they were to formally participate in national politics. Jamiat Islah 

has established a television station in Herat and popular radio stations in Kabul, Nangarhar, 

and Kunduz and have a monthly magazine with one of the largest circulations in the country. 

More recently, Jamiat Islah has relaxed the criteria for joining the party, which has led to a 

rise in youth membership and the formation of a separate youth wing, Nehad-e Jawanan-e 

Musalman (Bureau of Muslim Youth), often referred to as Najm for short. This wing may 

account for up to 90 percent of the total party membership today. In principle, Jamiat Islah 

calls for an elected government (in contrast to Hizb ut-Tahrir but similar to Hizb-e Islami), 

but it stands against the upcoming elections on the basis of the presence of international 

forces and is likewise against a bilateral security agreement with the United States.

The Hizb-e Islami youth wings form somewhat of a bridge between the registered political party Hizb-e Islami Afghanistan (HIA) and the insurgent faction, Hizb-e Islami Gulbuddin (HIG). Both the insurgent and registered political party have separate youth chapters but 

the tone, language, and sympathies of both groups are very similar and both meet and hold 

study groups on the campuses of Kabul and Nangarhar University. More recently, however, 

the HIA youth chapter has been pressed by its more pragmatic older leadership to back the 

Abdullah Abdullah presidential ticket on which the HIA head of central office Mohammad 

Khan is first vice president.32

Understanding the strength of the demographic, Abdullah Abdullah attended the HIA 

youth chapter’s annual meeting in October 2013. Those present said that the youth were 

not fully convinced and, as of early December 2013, still viewed Abdullah Abdullah and his 

Jamiat-e Islami party as “not Islamist enough.” Although they had not begun to mobilize, 

voters in the provinces were still undecided about the elections.

2014 Elections

The main phase of data collection for this report was carried over the summer months of 

2013, when it was not clear whether the elections would take place at all and no candidates 
10 USIP.ORG • SPECIAL REPORT 344

had been announced. It is therefore difficult to draw any conclusions about possible youth 

voting or participation patterns. In the provinces, the youth group members and political 

leaders we interviewed were involved in voter education and voter registration initiatives; 

the provinces of Herat, Bamiyan, and Khost were particularly active. As one member of a 

youth group from Khost described it in August, “We collected 1000 Afghanis from each 

person who was present in the group’s session to rent a car to go to the villages and gather 

and take all of those eligible for voting to get their voter identification cards tomorrow.” 33

In November, when a round of follow-up interviews were conducted after candidates had 

been announced, more enthusiasm for the elections was evident in the provinces than in the 

capital. This is interesting considering those in Kabul province, and in the city in particular, 

have arguably benefitted the most from the existing political order and have been least 

affected by the ongoing insurgency. Common sentiments from Kabul included “Afghans have 

lost their hope in the elections. We have seen that the past elections have created mistrust 

among people” and “I will not vote in the upcoming elections, because no one qualifies to 

become the future president of Afghanistan.” 34

Apathy in the capital appeared to be driven by the fact that presidential tickets were 

mostly collections of jihad-era politicians and warlords. In the seven survey provinces, youth 

accounted for 39 percent of all preliminary provincial council candidates, from 24 percent in 

Khost to 42 percent in Herat. The average age of all preliminary provincial council candidates 

in the seven provinces was forty-one.35

Although youth were excited about the fact that their peers would be participating in 

provincial-level elections in significant numbers for the first time since the fall of the Taliban, 

they seemed realistic about the type of youth running for office. For instance, about half of 

Figure 1. Preliminary Provincial Council Candidates

Bamiyan

Herat

Kandahar

Khost

Balkh

Kabul

Nangarhar

Preliminary candidates under the age of thirty-six Total candidates

15

51 57

135

25

74

15

62 40

123 125

441

32

110

500

400

300

200

100

0

Bamiyan

Herat

Kandahar

Khost

Balkh

Kabul

Nangarhar

29%

42%

33%

24%

32%

28% 26%

Preliminary candidates under the age of thirty-six by province

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%
USIP.ORG • SPECIAL REPORT 344	 11

the forty candidates running for provincial council in Kandahar were seen as instruments of 

power brokers. Of the remaining twenty, about half had the funds necessary to mount a serious 

campaign. Of these ten, several youth activists we spoke with said a realistic goal was to have 

three young, independent progressives elected to the fourteen-person provincial council.36 In 

Herat, several activists also said their goal was to have three of around twenty young progressive candidates elected to the nineteen-member council.37

These goals would seem within reach, but as of late November little planning among 

these groups was under way to launch coordinated campaigns to achieve them. As one 

interviewee summarized it, “The youth in Kandahar have not made any specific plans for 

the election yet, especially in the rural areas. I still think you will get a majority of youth 

taking part in the election process but not in any coordinated way.” 38 The same was true in 

Herat and Nangarhar, where the youth we spoke with were involved in election preparations 

but had not made any plans to back a slate of independent candidates. In Bamiyan, youth 

had comparatively better networks at the district level because of better security and had 

organized plans to work through district level teachers, though they faced similar hurdles in 

terms of limited funds. As one activist said,

The youth want to really have a key role in next elections. We have 488 members in the 

provincial center and districts of Bamiyan who were active in last elections for public 

awareness campaign. We are linked to the teachers in all districts. We do not have 

enough money to go to the districts so in last elections we called to the teachers into 

the provincial center to guide them about how to encourage voting in their areas.39

Those we interviewed said several interlocking factors were frustrating the formation of 

a youth bloc. The most commonly cited challenge was the control that power brokers still 

hold and the inability of new political groups to access the funds necessary to carry out 

campaigns in areas in which the barrier to entering politics can be very high, particularly 

regarding conducting effective outreach in insecure areas. One youth group leader summed 

it up bluntly: “A good friend of mine wanted to run for provincial council, but his parents 

wouldn’t let him because they couldn’t afford to hire armed guards, and right now it’s too 

dangerous to run a campaign without protection.” 40

In addition to continued power broker dominance, chronic insecurity, and limited funds, 

the new generation of political actors are also mostly unproven. Some who are currently 

running have shown they can bring wells and retaining walls to their villages by working for 

or with nongovernmental organizations or the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development. They remain untested, however, in other aspects of Afghan politics, and their ability 

to even help their own demographic has so far been limited. One university student in Kandahar said, “Actually the old political parties do not have positive records in this province, 

and the new parties that recently started to work and attract the youths still have not done 

any programs to promote the young generation.” 41

As of late November, the same appeared to be true at the provincial level regarding 

unified youth support to presidential candidates. Many youths in provincial centers believe 

Ashraf Ghani is best qualified to run the country, though many we interviewed also said 

that they continued to support President Karzai and would vote for whomever the president 

endorsed, officially or tacitly. According to one Herat city youth group leader,

The youth living in urban areas are well educated, have access to the technologies 

and governmental services, have the capacity to analyze the political situation of the 

country, and will vote to the capacity and policy of candidates. For these people, Ashraf 

Ghani and Zalmai Rasoul are the best candidates.42

Before candidates were announced in October, the mostly progressive and educated 

youth we interviewed consistently named former ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad as someone 

they would vote for because of his “strong relationship to other countries” and his “plan to 

bring peace to the country.” However, when asked to articulate this plan, these supporters 
12 USIP.ORG • SPECIAL REPORT 344

gave only vague answers. The young progressives’ attraction to men like Khalilzad seems 

to lie more in the belief that they represent the new generation rather than any specific 

defined plan. They understand that they still need individuals from the older generation as 

entry points into the political arena. From this standpoint, youth are not looking to change 

the system per se but to gain more entry into the system.

When pressed, even the most educated provincial youth believed that the presidential 

vote would come down to regional influence, local calculations, and the pull of power brokers. 

Thus, in Herat, the Sayyaf ticket was considered stronger than the others, given the presence 

of Herati strongman Ismael Khan as first vice president on Sayyaf’s ticket. In Balkh, the youth 

vote was split between those voting for the Ashraf Ghani ticket—some because he represented 

the younger generation and others because northern strongman Abul Rashid Dostum is his first 

vice president—and the Abdullah Abdullah ticket, which has the backing of Balkh governor 

Atta Mohammed Nur.

The majority of interviewees believed that elections were likely to go to a second round, 

though few grasped how the possibility of a runoff would affect their vote, if at all. The 

overall opinion was that the youth would vote, but that theirs would not be a defining vote. 

“Three or four elections from now we may have started to forget tribalism,” the leader of a 

youth cultural group told us. “Right now we are still children in this regard. Seventy percent 

of the people living in the districts who go to the polls will vote for whom they are told by 

their elder or local warlord to vote for.” 43 Other youth were slightly more optimistic but still 

realistic about how much influence they would have on the outcome of the 2014 elections. 

“I think the youth’s role in 2014 elections will be low,” an activist from Kabul province said, 

“But in 2019, youth will have an important role in the elections and will start to be able to 

achieve some of the goals we are now defining after 2019.” 44

Transition

Even from the educated and fairly progressive youth demographic interviewed for this 

report, misgivings were deep about the transition and the motives of actors on all sides of 

the conflict—from the international community to the government of Afghanistan and particularly neighboring countries. “The international community will never leave Afghanistan 

alone because they invested millions of dollars,” a respondent from Khost said.45 Distrust 

of international intentions paled in comparison with youth perceptions about the meddling of their immediate neighbors: “The neighboring countries will never allow us to be 

independent.” 46 Other opinions were more nuanced: In Kandahar, several respondents were 

happy that international forces had pulled out of the districts but advocated for a continued 

provincial level presence because “there is a genuine fear of attack by Iran and Pakistan.” 47

Confidence was also considerable, even in some of the most insecure provinces, that 

international troop withdrawal (especially from the districts) is long overdue and a necessary 

step toward stability. More than anything, however, the youth we interviewed were confused 

by the mixed messages they say they are receiving from both the international community 

and Afghan government leaders. This confusion, and the range of viewpoints and conspiracy 

theories it was perpetuating, was not noticeably different from the uncertainty that the 

population at large was feeling as 2013 drew to a close.

Some are convinced that the country is heading toward a period of instability like that 

following Soviet withdrawal in the late 1980s. The underlying factor, they feel, is not the 

strength of the insurgency, which was described as losing strength in traditional support 

zones like Kandahar and Khost, but on the continued weakness of the government and its 

inability to support the Afghanistan National Security Forces without considerable external 

The young progressives 

understand that they still need 

individuals from the older 

generation as entry points 

into the political arena. From 

this standpoint, youth are not 

looking to change the system 

per se but to gain more entry 

into the system.
USIP.ORG • SPECIAL REPORT 344	 13

assistance. “My peers do not trust the government,” a respondent from Kabul noted, “and 

think that after 2014 the situation will be worse. Some think that we will witness another 

civil war.” Others went further, expressing the belief that their generation would bear the 

brunt of impending instability.48 “We are uncertain about post-2014. There is no guarantee 

at all. We see youth are the only group that will really be harmed by the conflict and insurgency.” 49 Among other things, this level of uncertainty was causing some youth in Kabul to 

put off marriage until after 2015, at which time they felt they would have more clarity on 

the near-term viability of the state and thus on decisions to emigrate.

Those who felt that transition would ultimately lead to stability were divided about how 

this would be achieved. Some felt that long-term support and a bilateral security agreement 

with the United States was necessary. Others advocated a more direct disengagement and 

a refocusing on internal challenges and relations with immediate neighbors. “Youth, including myself, have a positive opinion toward transition. Afghans don’t want foreigners to lead 

them. It is true that our economy will go down, but we have to take the lead at some point,” 

a student from Nangarhar said.50 A respondent from Kandahar explained it this way:

We must think about political transition as an exam and an opportunity because our 

country will act independently and everything will be done by our own people, but in 

order to pass this political transition successfully, we need to get some preparation, 

like we must work on a better and cordial relationship with our neighboring countries 

like Pakistan and also we must review our domestic relationship among the different 

ethnic groups in Afghanistan.51

In some of the most unstable provinces—Khost, Nangarhar, Kandahar—fears over the 

negative impacts of transition are overall less than in more stable provinces, such as Kabul 

and Bamiyan. In the unstable provinces, youth feel that they have less to lose and would 

remain in their provinces and attempt to continue their work in some fashion in the event 

of a Taliban return. “Youth do not see the Taliban as their enemy, but the warlords and their 

political parties,” one young journalist from Khost said.52 In the more stable provinces, 

youth felt they had more to lose if the Taliban were to return to power, less ability to live 

and work in their provinces in this event. “Hazara people are concerned about the post2014 [scenarios] because they are the first people who will be harmed by the withdrawal of 

foreign troops, then the insurgent groups and the Taliban can easily attack our districts.”53 

Even in Bamiyan, however, the main fear is not the return of the Taliban but of communal 

war between commander networks. “It is a concern among people that NATO is pulling out 

and the former commanders are arming themselves,” an interviewee explained. “This will 

have a negative impact on the community once these commanders start fighting when 

NATO leaves.” 54

Beyond Transition

The main challenge for politically active youth is bridging the rural-urban divide. In the last 

half of the twentieth century, Afghan politics have swung widely from Kabul-centered—

both leftist and religious parties in the 1960s and 1970s—to village-level mujahideen 

groups, later Taliban, and their rural constituencies. Both movements were lopsided. Today, 

youth organizations and political parties have the same lopsided tendencies—individual 

youths may maintain contact with rural areas, but as groups and as political movements 

there is little coordination or outreach from the capital to the provinces, especially from 

the provincial center to the districts. At present, those groups that appear to be bridging 

this divide the best are the religious movements with strong youth components. Other than 

power broker-sponsored groups, which are most active around election time, district-level 

political activity was limited in the provinces studied here. “If people want to be politically 
14 USIP.ORG • SPECIAL REPORT 344

active, they leave the districts,” one Kandahar city-based youth group leader explained. 

“There is no real grassroots political movements at the district level.” 55

Communication

The inability to forge linkages is preventing the consolidation of youth political movements 

and allowing the continuation of old-guard politics at every level. The role that technology 

can play in bridging this gap is partial at best. Some estimates indicate between ten and 

fifteen million mobile phone users in Afghanistan today. Youth political leaders also repeatedly cited the widespread use of cellular phones in provincial centers as the principle means 

of staying in touch with possible constituents and mobilizers at the district and village 

level. “Youth like modern technology nowadays, for example, a shepherd listens to music 

through his mobile phone. Even illiterate people use modern technology,” a Khost citybased journalist noted.56 Although we found that youth groups in provincial centers were 

communicating with youth in the districts (often uneducated or illiterate youth) via cell 

phones, they did so on a one-to-one basis for basic information sharing and mobilization 

purposes. The use has not advanced to any strategic level or mass outreach campaigns.

Many provincial youth groups have established Facebook pages and Twitter feeds and 

other social media tools to share ideas and to organize, but these initiatives have not yet 

spurred any definite political linkages either up to the national level or down in to the 

districts, where Internet and smart phone penetration is still limited. Youth based in provincial centers better understand the limits of information technology systems than their 

counterparts in Kabul. Those we spoke with in the provinces grasp that technology alone 

is not enough to establish meaningful networks, but that personal groundwork needs to be 

laid first and only then should technology be introduced to leverage these personal ties—

that, in other words, even if every village were today equipped with Wi-Fi, a shift toward 

more open and progressive politics would not necessarily come to pass, merely—and more 

likely—a more robust continuation of patron-client relations.

Provincial youth understand that their power relative to the older generation is largely a 

result of their mastery of media—not just new media but more basic things such as being 

able to give a television interview. In the east and the southeast, youth have grabbed a 

greater share of power within local media—particularly by becoming radio, television, and 

print journalists—than they have in the south.57 Some of these politically active youth have 

established their own mostly low-frequency radio stations, but the by-and-large provincial 

media are still controlled either by power brokers (such as the Karzai family-owned Hewad 

television in Kandahar) or by religious organizations or individuals.

Education, Income, and Institutional Reforms

Many youths advocated for institutional government reforms—principally creating a full 

youth ministry rather than the current department within the Ministry of Information and 

Culture. However, even more said that education, technical training, and job creation are 

the priority and that institutional reforms at this stage would mean little to youth given the 

weakness of the government in general. As one female interviewee from Nangarhar who was 

barred by her family from joining a political party said, “We don’t have as many legal limitations as we have social limitations.” 58 This sentiment was echoed by others in Nangarhar 

as well who said that their province had become more socially conservative in recent years.

Respondents were then divided over the role the government should (or could) play in 

educational and economic issues. A segment of youth in all provinces believed that job 

creation is the government’s main responsibility after the restoration of security and that 

in practice this means using international funds for large-scale public works that would put 

Some of these politically active 

youth have established their 

own mostly low-frequency 

radio stations, but the by-andlarge provincial media are 

still controlled either by 

power brokers or by religious 

organizations or individuals.
USIP.ORG • SPECIAL REPORT 344	 15

the currently underemployed younger generation to work on projects from unskilled manual 

labor to those requiring engineering degrees or that the government should lower the retirement age to open up more jobs within the bureaucracy to the younger generation.

In terms of education, respondents identified the government as often part of the problem. In Kandahar, respondents said that tribal differences were still defining politics in part 

because the history taught in government schools reinforced these divisions. 

From first class to the end of high school the curriculum teaches us divisions between 

the Durrani and the Ghilzai. They talk about when one group was on top and when the 

other got power, rather than speaking in terms of the rulers and the years, they talk 

about the whole communities.

In a province like Kandahar, characterized by an intermixing of Ghilzai tribes and ruling 

Durrani from tribes such as Popalzai and the Mohammadzai, youth say this zero-sum historical perspective perpetuates tribalism in things like politics and government and securitysector appointments both within greater Kandahar (Kandahar, Uruzgan, Helmand, Zabul) 

and between greater Kandahar and Ghilzai majority provinces in the east.59

Refreshingly, the majority of those interviewed were less concerned with international 

support in the form of goods, infrastructure, or core funding for their organizations and 

more concerned with specific skills training for capacity building within the organization or 

curriculum and Trainer of Trainer programs which they could push down the district levels. 

They were equally wary of just “holding workshops” and said that skills training needed to 

be paired with small-scale follow-on projects.60

Stability

More than jobs, schooling, and Internet accessibility in the villages, the viability of the 

nascent progressive youth politics in Afghanistan depends on ensuring stability above all 

else. In the near-term, the level of uncertainty about the transition period means that individuals able to dispense patronage in the form of physical protection and basic income will 

continue to call the shots politically. Because most youth fundamentally understand this 

state of affairs, what they are asking for is not revolution but breathing room. Even if they 

retain the vestiges of their fathers’ politics, youth need to be spared actually returning to 

the ethno-political war footing of the early 1990s.

The success of the fledgling political movements and organizations that seek to move 

beyond the old-guard political systems depends primarily on preventing a bigger civil war 

or Taliban rule. So, despite a laundry list of needs specific to the younger generation, losing 

sight of the immediate national needs of a successful transfer of power in the next elections, 

a long-term economic and security agreement with the West, and an earnest peace and 

reconciliation process with the insurgency are necessary preconditions for youth political 

movements to take root and positively affect Afghanistan’s political landscape. A return to 

the status quo ante would set back the next generation—the sons and the daughters of the 

current youth political leaders—on whom much hope now rests.

USIP.ORG • SPECIAL REPORT 344	 17

Notes

1. Interview, Kabul Province, September 2013.

2. The United Nations has a similarly expansive definition of youth. According to UNESCO, “ ‘Youth’ is best 

understood as a period of transition from the dependence of childhood to adulthood’s independence. . . 

. ‘Youth’ is often indicated as a person between the age where he/she may leave compulsory education, 

and the age at which he/she finds his/her first employment. This latter age limit has been increasing, as 

higher levels of unemployment and the cost of setting up an independent household puts many young 

people into a prolonged period of dependency.” However, when pressed for an age range, the UN adopts 

the Africa Youth Charter’s definition of fifteen to thirty-five years of age. See www.unesco.org/new/en/

social-and-human-sciences/themes/youth/youth-definition.

3. Interview, Kandahar Province, August 2013. 

4. Interview with member of progressive Kabul-based political party, Kabul, November 2013.

5. Interview, Kandahar Province, November 2013. 

6. The perception of political parties is also linked to the pre-war 1970s, which were politically tumultuous 

times in Afghanistan as elsewhere in the region and the world.

7. “Allah says in the holy Quran that education is the main obligation for Muslim men and women. But in 

the solving of this problem for the youth political parties haven’t taken any steps” (Interview, Kandahar 

Province, November 2013).

8. “Now people consider the political parties as foreign proxies who work for others rather than their own 

country” (Interview, Khost Province, October 2013). “The reason I left [the legal wing of] Hizb-e Islami 

was because I saw no difference between them and the [Pakistani terrorist organization] Lashkar-e Taiba 

at the University in Jalalabad” (Interview, Nangarhar Province, September 2013). 

9. Interview, Kandahar Province, August 2013.

10. Interview, Khost Province, October 2013. 

11. Interview, Kabul Province, September 2013.

12. Interview, Balkh Province, October 2013.

13. Interview, Khost Province, October 2013. Despite their specific nature, the percentages quoted by this 

individual represent his individual opinion and are not based on published statistics. 

14. S. Reza Kazemi, “The ‘Afghanistan 1400’ Movement: Changing Youth Politics in Afghanistan?” Afghanistan 

Analysts Network, December 30, 2012, www.afghanistan-analysts.org/the-afghanistan-1400-movementchanging-youth-politics-in-afghanistan.

15. Interviews with four Afghan political analysts, Kabul City, October and November 2013.

16. One of Razmak ’s two deputies, the women’s rights activist Hangama Sadid, is also under thirty-five. 

17. Interview with a party recruiting officer in Kabul, October 2013.

18. Interview with Solidarity of Afghanistan chairman Dawud Razmak, Kabul, October 2013

19. Interview with Afghan political analyst, Kabul, November 2013

20. The political organization, Wadan Afghanistan, discussed in this report should not be confused with the 

civil society organization, Wadan. 

21. Ghafur Lewal, Aminullah Dariz, Qazi Sayed Ekhtyar Sabawun, Rahimullah Samandar, Dawud Wafa. 

22. Kandahar is President Hamid Karzai’s tribal stronghold. 

23. Interview with Abdul Ahad Mohammadyar, Kabul, October 2013

24. Interview, Kandahar Province, August 2013.

25. Afghan Millat is a social democrat party founded in 1966 and has long been viewed as a Pashtun 

nationalist movement.

26. The number 1400 refers to the 1400 year of the solar calendar. The year today is 1392. The group has 

named itself as one that will be preparing and working with youth communities during the upcoming 

century that starts in eight years. 

27. Interview, Kandahar Province, November 2013. 

28. In other provinces in which the researchers have conducted studies in the past three years this was also 

found to be true, and something that was not necessarily hidden.

29. Interview, Kandahar Province, November 2013. 

30. Interview, Nangarhar Province, September 2013.

31. Borhan Osman conducted extensive field research on Islamist youth movements in Afghanistan 

throughout 2013 for a forthcoming report to be released by the Afghanistan Analysts Network and shared 

some of his findings with USIP in December 2013 for this section of the reportnadaASDFGHJSasdbnmnc

xzZxcvbnm,./?.,mn.

32. Hizb-e Islami Gulbuddin officially endorsed presidential candidate Qutbuddin Hillal in mid-February—a 

move that may draw some of the HIA backing toward Hillal, given the often unclear practical distinction 

between HIA and HIG, despite the fact that former is an officially registered political party and the latter 

is an antigovernment insurgent group headquartered in Pakistan. 

33. Interview, Khost Province, October 2013. 

34. Interview, Kabul Province, October 2013.

35. Ages were derived from a number of sources, including individual interviews with the candidates, news 

reports, available public records, and Facebook and other social media searches. 

36. Interviews, Kandahar Province, November 2013. 
18 USIP.ORG • SPECIAL REPORT 344

37. These “young progressives” were described as those who had been encouraged to run for provincial council by their 

communities after demonstrating an ability to bring services down to the district level. Past political affiliation or 

membership in a newly formed youth group did not seem to matter. In many cases, these individuals have simply 

been effective project officers implementing NSP or USAID projects and understood how to navigate the aid/

development system effectively and with a minimum of corruption (Interview, Kandahar, November 2013). 

38. Interview, Kandahar Province, August 2013. 

39. Interview, Bamiyan Province, July 2013. 

40. Interview, Kandahar Province, November 2013. 

41. Interview, Kandahar Province, August 2013.

42. Interview, Herat Province, December 2013. 

43. Interview, Kandahar Provinces, November 2014. The percentage quoted by this individual is his personal estimate 

and not derived from published statistics.

44. Interview, Kabul Province, September 2013. 

45. Interview, Khost Province, October 2013.

46. Interview, Kabul Province, September 2013.

47. Interview, Kandahar Province, November 2013.

48. Interview, Kabul Province, September 2013.

49. Interview, Kabul Province, September 2013.

50. Interview, Nangarhar Province, September 2013.

51. Interview, Kandahar Province, August 2013.

52. Interview, Khost Province, October 2013.

53. Interview, Bamiyan Province, July 2013. 

54. Interview, Bamiyan Province, July 2013.

55. Interview, Bamiyan Province, July 2013. 

56. Interview, Khost Province, October 2013.

57. Interview, Kandahar Province, November 2013.

58. Interview, Nangarhar Province, September 2013.

59. Interview, Kandahar Province, November 2013.

60. Interview, Kandahar Province, August 2013.

Of Related Interest

•	 Youth and Post-Conflict Reconstruction: Agents of Change by Stephanie Schwartz (USIP Press, 

2010)

•	 Why Afghanistan’s Provincial Council Elections Matter by Anna Larson and Noah Coburn (Peace 

Brief, March 2014)

•	 Youth Mobilization and Political Constraints in Afghanistan: The Y Factor by Anna Larson and Noah 

Coburn (Special Report, January 2014)

•	 2014 Presidential and Provincial Council Elections in Afghanistan by Zekria Barakzai (Special 

Report, October 2013)

•	 Regional Politics and the Prospects for Stability in Afghanistan by Sunil Dasgupta (Peaceworks, 

April 2013)

•	 Perceptions of Politically Engaged, Influential Afghans on the Way Forward by Omar Samad (Special 

Report, March 2013)

•	 Justifying the Means: Afghan Perceptions of Electoral Processes by Noah Coburn and Anna Larson 

(Special Report, February 2013)

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