While his rivals tour the country in armoured Land Cruisers surrounded by retinues of armed retainers, Afghanistan’s greatest anti-corruption maverick and political eccentric is campaigning to become the country’s next president in “Mr Bean’s car”.

The tiny black Suzuki with a puttering 40mph top speed and a large rust hole in the floor is a well-known oddity on Afghan roads and is frequently compared to the Mini driven by Mr Bean, a character much loved in Afghanistan. But its humble pedigree is rather the point as far as the Afghan MP Ramazan Bashardost is concerned.

“Yes it is a small car, like Mr Bean, but I refuse to spend international money for a luxury life when people are hungry,” he said. Before the presidential polls on August 20, Dr Bashardost has taken the car to 21 Afghan provinces in two weeks. While his opponents write him off as a populist and even question his mental stability, Dr Bashardost is showing support in opinion polls that could yet prove to be one of the most telling features of Afghanistan’s elections.

“Ninety nine per cent of Afghans are unhappy. This is my big chance,” he said as the Suzuki chugged along the streets of Kabul, attracting hoots and waves. “Absolutely, there is a change taking place in the old Afghan politics.”

Selling himself on a platform of opposition to the well-documented corruption of the administration of Hamid Karzai, Dr Bashardost says that Afghanistan is witnessing the dawn of a new issues-led political landscape, replacing the patronage-based system of regional warlords commanding the votes of their supporters — a claim that many observers would dispute.

While he may be alone in imagining that he will be the next president, private opinion polling suggests that his message has resonance. In one poll this year he was fourth and just 5 per cent behind President Karzai, the favourite to win. Dr Bashardost has spent the past five years living and breathing his election message. The former Planning Minister, who resigned from the Karzai Government in 2004, lives a life of extreme frugality in “The Freedom Tent”, which is pitched next to parliament.

Members of the public are invited to go to the tent to air their views. When The Times met him there were half a dozen poor Afghans with him.

“They say Ramazan Bashardost is crazy, a populist,” said Dr Bashardost, who often refers to himself in the third person. “These were the same allegations they used against Gandhi, against Martin Luther King, against John F. Kennedy, against Lincoln. I am not Kennedy or Lincoln, but you cannot find a corrupt man who says that Bashardost is good.”

His companions nodded and offered a prayer for his success.

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