Qazi Mohammad Amin Waqad, a tribal leader appointed by President Karzai to negotiate the withdrawal of either Mr. Rassoul or Qayum Karzai, said the president had thrown his weight behind Mr. Rassoul. The president’s brother was debating whether to withdraw, Mr. Waqad said, and if so, who to endorse.

Human rights activists are alarmed by the number of warlords so obviously still in the political mainstream.

Ajmal Baluchzada, a member of the Transitional Justice Coordination Group, a coalition of Western-financed groups that lobbies for past war crimes to be acknowledged and punished, said that some of the men initially tried to stay out of the spotlight after the Taliban’s overthrow, worried about potential war-crimes proceedings. “But as time passed and they saw nothing happen, and they saw the Taliban growing stronger, it made them want to get involved.”

Most analysts believe that none of the 11 tickets in the race will get the necessary 50 percent of the vote in the initial balloting, which will create a runoff between the top two vote-getters.

That will give influential figures on the also-ran tickets an opportunity to barter their support in the runoff for a position in the government of the eventual winner. Warlords tend to be strongly identified with their ethnic groups — Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek or Hazara — and can usually deliver blocks of guaranteed votes as well as campaign money.

“For me, it will be the continuation in power of the same group,” said Sima Samar, head of the country’s human rights commission. “I’m sorry to say this, but this is the truth.”

Some of the candidates seen as warlords have disbanded their private armies as they moved into politics. Others, like General Dostum, still have personal militias and do not hesitate to use them. As recently as last June, General Dostum forced the governor of Jowzjan Province out of office by surrounding his home with gunmen.