On the president’s patch. A farmer shows off his support for Mr Karzai in last August’s deeply, deeply flawed elections, by holding up a campaign badge. The farmer, in Dand district, home to the president’s ancestral village of of Karz, was keen to be seen supporting the country’s only leader since the Taleban fell in 2001. The area has been relatively peaceful - compared to the rest of the province. Most of the people belong to the royal tribes which have prospered most during the last nine-years of corruption. More than a million votes were thrown out of the ballot because of fraud and the president only narrowly avoided a second run-off after his main rival Dr Abdullah Abdullah bowed out. Mr Karzai’s brother, Ahmed Wali who is based in Kandahar City, was accused of orchestrating industrial scale cheating in Kandahar and other parts of southern Afghanistan - a claim he denies, along with running the region’s narcotics trade, while intimidating and occasionally murdering independent-minded government officials. Development advisors in Dand insist the key to success is creating a goverment people feel connected to. This man certainly appears to.

On the president’s patch. A farmer shows off his support for Mr Karzai in last August’s deeply, deeply flawed elections, by holding up a campaign badge. The farmer, in Dand district, home to the president’s ancestral village of of Karz, was keen to be seen supporting the country’s only leader since the Taleban fell in 2001.

The area has been relatively peaceful - compared to the rest of the province. Most of the people belong to the royal tribes which have prospered most during the last nine-years of corruption.

More than a million votes were thrown out of the ballot because of fraud and the president only narrowly avoided a second run-off after his main rival Dr Abdullah Abdullah bowed out.

Mr Karzai’s brother, Ahmed Wali who is based in Kandahar City, was accused of orchestrating industrial scale cheating in Kandahar and other parts of southern Afghanistan - a claim he denies, along with running the region’s narcotics trade, while intimidating and occasionally murdering independent-minded government officials.

Development advisors in Dand insist the key to success is creating a goverment people feel connected to. This man certainly appears to.