Behind every great leader, there’s a good husband.

That, at least, is the case in the home of parliament candidate Fatima Kazemian and her husband, Ibrahim Alemi. While Mrs. Kazemian scampers up mountainsides and drives to the most remote districts of her Afghan province of Bamiyan, her husband is behind her, arranging props and posters, setting up the next campaign visit by cellphone, and looking after their 6-year-old daughter, Chenika.

He is, in a word, devoted. Here are some other words too: modern, educated, brave, and a little worried.

“Sometimes, I get worried about her security,” he admitted, “because there will be a big competition in this election, with 68 people running for just four parliamentary seats. There might be some weapons used, so I’m a little bit worried.”

But overall, Alemi supports his wife’s decision to run in the first parliamentary election in his country in more than 30 years. “I think it’s good that she’s running,” he said, and mentioned how proud he was of her work on behalf of women and literacy over the past two years since they had returned from exile in Iran. But as for taking up domestic duties and being the perfect husband behind his politician wife, Alemi said that this comes naturally. “I also worked in the women’s development center in Bamiyan, so I’m always with women, and understand their problems.”

Ibrahim Alemi is by no means the typical Afghan male, and Afghanistan is not quickly turning into a bastion of liberalism. But with 27 percent of the nation’s new parliamentary seats set aside by law for women representatives, there is suddenly a large number of husbands who are finding themselves in charge of Daddy Day Care.

One of these is the husband of Bamiyan’s female governor, Habiba Sarabi, who goes for months at a time without seeing his wife at their home in Kabul.

“Do you believe, that when I’m at work, I completely forget my family,” says Governor Sarabi, with a guilty smile in her office in Bamiyan. “Otherwise I would not succeed in my work, and I wouldn’t be able to do anything for my people.”

It’s unfortunate, the governor says, that it’s impossible to blend a family life and a working life, but she says her family supports her. “My family has let me come. They say you have come here as a symbol for us. They respect me and this is a big start.”

At his wife’s campaign stop, in the remote Bamiyan village of Kharob-e Miyona, Alemi was playing the supportive spouse to Fatima Kazemian the candidate. As Mrs. Kazemian spoke of building new roads, of providing new schools and better health care, and abolishing forced marriages, Alemi tapped campaign posters into the village’s adobe walls, and kept their daughter Chenika out of mischief.

Afterward, my translator asked Alemi if he knew how much his life was going to change if his wife was elected to a five-year term as parliament member. “Yes,” he said with a smile, “but I think it’s the right thing for her to do.”

And Kazemian added her own brassy quip. “Besides, he doesn’t have a choice.”

Correspondent - Nachammai Raman

Editor's note: This blog dispatch was filed several days before Friday's assassination of Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar. Despite speculation that the Tamil Tigers are responsible, no one has yet claimed responsibility.

When Thamilvilly walked in to meet me, I wondered if she was some big cheese’s assistant coming to tell me my interview was canceled.  In neatly pinned-up pigtails, austere pants, and a belted baggy shirt, she looked more like an intern than the deputy head of the women’s wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The LTTE, also known as the Tamil Tigers, is a secular separatist group that has fought a sometimes brutal war for independence against the Sri Lankan government for decades. They have used conventional, guerrilla, and terror tactics, including more than 200 suicide bombings.

But this Tamil Tigress looked less than ferocious.

Thamilvilly shared with me that her resolutions for the year were to be able to write essays in English and to speak English fluently. I asked her if it was to get a better position in the rebel movement. “If you build up your capacity, your positions will come,” she said.

From talking to her, I found out that the LTTE invested heavily in the education of its members. All new recruits were given a year’s basic training.  This included literacy skills for those who couldn’t read and write.  In addition to the physical component, there was a big chunk on the history of freedom struggles/wars, political science, and medicine. Depending on recruits’ interests and capabilities they were given advanced training for the jobs they would take up.  But all recruits were trained for combat and had to take up arms when called.

“Our leader [Prabhakaran] is very particular about giving both men and women the same opportunities,” Thamilvilly said. The LTTE started taking in women cadres in 1985 although its spokesperson wouldn’t share how many female members it currently had. 

Thamilvilly joined the LTTE some ten years ago when she was 17 or 18. Her studies were disrupted because of heavy fighting. She and a group of friends thought they were going to die anyway from the army’s bombing and shelling and decided to dedicate their lives to the LTTE’s “freedom struggle,” in which case, even if they died, they would die for a cause.

Even now, Thamilvilly and her peers have little to gain personally from their association with the LTTE. “If I die, what political power am I going to gain? We are sacrificing our lives for our people. 18,000 Tigers have died on the battlefield.”  Tigers get no salaries.  They are all volunteers.

Why was she so devoted to the LTTE then?  “The LTTE gave me dignity, a job, a purpose in life.  Otherwise, I would have had to go from place to place as a displaced person.”

Did she want to die? “All everybody wants is to study, be good in life …. Nobody wants to die. The basic human instinct is for self-preservation,” she said. “If somebody is willing to die, then, there must be a grievance that is stronger than the instinct for self-preservation.”

I couldn't help but wonder, then, what some of these Tigers could achieve if they didn't have a rebellion for which to fight and - if need be - die.