I imagine that being mayor of a city, despite decent pay and perks, could be a thankless job. Whether you're the mayor of East Podunk (pop 236) or a metropolis of millions of people most of the problems land on your desk. Problems of moving people around from work to home to play.
Keeping the streets clean and safe. Keeping coalitions together, satisfying the divergent interests of the various neighborhoods and competing groups.
Power failures, sporting events, conventions, fires, storms, crimes both petty and spectacular, strikes, all bring an overnight bag or more of grief for the Mayor.
But what must it be like to be Mayor in a city that has grown in population from just over a million to nearly 5 million in eight years, a city of mostly unpaved roads, a city 3500 years old, with a dozen ethnic groups and half a dozen languages, a city with one foot in the present, one foot in the past and both planted firmly in a war.
Muhammad Yunus Nawandish is a civil engineer by training who spent much of his career in the oil, gas and power sectors before being appointed as Mayor by Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai in January 2010. The former Mayor, Mir Abdul Ahad Sahebi, was convicted of corruption and sentenced to four years in prison.
They call Nawandish a hands on Mayor because he is visible, often seen in the street. Meeting with neighborhood groups, checking construction, highway and infrastructure projects, reporting to the Jirgas, Afghanistan's two houses of parliament.
His anti corruption program is said to have reduced the level of official bribery his road building program gets good reviews as does his ability to raise funds through foreign aid. Kabul is able to raise only about $30 million a year and needs a dozen times that number to make a dent in its infrastructure and other problems.
Nawandish is said to work 16 and 17 hour days and has said that he took the job only out of a sense of patriotic duty. He has a long road ahead in repairing the infrastructure and economy of Kabul and helping to restore peace and security.
Related stories and sources:
The can-do mayor of Kabul: Some see a model for a modern Afghanistan politician
