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The outspoken, charismatic and idealist Dr Ramazan Bashardost – friend of humans, as his last name translates – is a member of the Afghan Parliament, a former planning minister and an independent candidate for the upcoming presidential elections.

Dr Bashardost stood third in 2009 presidential elections. As Hamid Karzai failed to get 50 per cent plus one vote, he had to compete in a runoff with the second-placed candidate Abdullah Abdullah, who refused the runoff.

“According to the Afghan constitution, it was my right to be in that runoff but (Hillary) Clinton declared Hamid Karzai the winner from Washington DC. I was a clear winner had the elections not been rigged,” he claimed.

Born in Qarabagh district of the Ghazni province in central Afghanistan, Bashardost received primary and intermediate education in Qarabagh and later in Maimana, capital of Faryab province in northern Afghanistan. Soon after the 1978 coup d’etat, Bashardost left Afghanistan for Iran. He finished high school in Iran and then immigrated to Pakistan.

In 1983, he left Pakistan for France where he spent over 20 years, earning degrees in law and political science. In 1989 he enrolled at Garonable University where he earned a masters degree in law. In 1990, he did his Masters in Diplomacy from Paris University. In 1992, he did his Masters in Political Science. He earned three master’s degrees and a doctorate in political science at the University of Toulouse, France.

During the 2009 elections, Bashardost claims to have travelled to 24 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces on public transport to preach his message of peace, social justice and non-violence. In a unique and unprecedented move he used to sell his posters and promotional DVDs to his fans as a source of income for the election campaign.

Nicknamed the “Gandhi of Afghanistan”, Bashardost was recently invited to deliver a lecture on the Afghanistan crisis at Gothenburg University in Sweden, where he spoke about president Hamid Karzai’s incompetence and the US-lead Nato forces’ failure in establishing peace and countering drug trafficking as well as terrorism.

For this interview, held after his speech at Gothenburg University, the presidential hopeful was dressed in traditional Afghan dress with its collar lined with the colours of the Afghan flag. Bashardost was, as usual, carrying piles of folders and files that he said were the ‘documents of corruption’ he would present to the European people, “whose taxes were being paid to protect the warlords, criminals and terrorists in Afghanistan.”

While vociferously criticising Nato, Hamid Karzai and the warlords for their failure to bring peace in the country, he backed his arguments with evidences he claimed to have received from some “honest Afghan officials.”

“The Taliban would have totally vanished if the coalition forces and Karzai regime were sincere in their efforts to bring about peace in Afghanistan,” he claimed.

“Billions of dollars were poured into Afghanistan but all were wasted by the corrupt government and NGOs. To me they are No-Good-Guys,” he added.

He resigned as planning minister in 2005, when the government refused to take actions against some 2,000 NGOs, which were allegedly declared ‘corrupt’ by his ministry.

“Nobody is with the Afghan people. The foreigners have their own agenda in their so-called war on terror/war against Taliban and, you know, Hamid Karzai calls Mullah Omar a ‘brother’.”

“Yes, they are all brothers—in drug trafficking ....in committing crimes against humanity. It’s not only me saying this. Ask Ali Ahmed Jalali (former interior minister) for all the details. Read the newspapers about the involvement of Hamid Karzai’s brother in drug trade.”

As he continued naming some sources he also referred to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC’s) report stating that drug trade generated 60 billion dollars in revenue for drug traffickers under the very nose of US-led Nato forces. “Corruption and drug trade are practically legal in today’s Afghanistan,” he summed it up, a bit furiously.

After wining a parliamentary seat with second highest number of votes from Kabul city, Dr Bashardost built “Tent of the Nation” outside Afghan parliament to be easily accessible to the ordinary people and distributed his salary among the needy.