Afghanistan will hold two crucial elections in the next seven months: a parliamentary vote in October and a presidential election in April. The outcomes could help sustain a steady course for the teenage democracy, and jockeying is under way among political factions. But a rise in organized political violence threatens to taint the elections and derail the nation’s progress toward stable governance.

More than at any time since the Taliban was ousted in 2001, rampant criminality has returned to the heart of Afghanistan’s politics. Kabul is overrun with mafia-style networks that control the national drug trade and bring violence to the streets with armed robberies and factional warfare. The crime wave has seriously debilitated political stability and internal security, as each criminal syndicate attempts to use the government to protect its business and ensure its longevity.

Many Afghan politicians and strongmen engage in or support these organized criminal activities. Drug smuggling, land grabbing, extortion, illegal mining, kidnapping, revenue theft, torture and arbitrary detention all take place under the protection of the strongmen who serve in government. Some prominent political groups also retain private militias. Controlling territory with an armed presence allows parties to distribute spoils to their supporters and actively intimidate their opponents.

Afghanistan’s previous regime helped entrench the current disorder. The Hamid Karzai administration cultivated a small group of Afghan power brokers, including some with criminal pasts, creating an elaborate network of undemocratic patronage. These men were frequently shuffled between powerful government positions to maintain a semblance of stability, and had unfettered access to cash and profitable contracts. Most of them sought to profit from the U.S. war on terror and had a direct hand in criminalizing politics.

Today these strongmen struggle to protect the areas under their control, knowing their survival depends on it. Many Afghan politicians are now carving themselves new identities as a means of suppressing their criminal pasts or associations with unfavorable leaders or political parties. To do so, they constantly switch political alliances, form shaky grand coalitions, or engage in horse-trading. Almost every large political party is founded around a personality cult, and leaders pass on their authority to handpicked successors.