If he wins — and there are indications that he might — Hamid Karzai’s second term as Afghan president could be more challenging than his first। Even though final election results will take at least a week, the Karzai camp has already claimed victory for the incumbent, while the spokesman for rival candidate Abdullah Abdullah has alleged fraud.
The Taliban’s threat to wreck the polls failed, for people did come out to vote, though the turnout was understandably low. The election was termed a referendum on Mr Karzai’s policies, which have failed to give his people what they want first and foremost — peace. The Taliban insurgency has acquired a new vigour, and on polling day alone there were 73 acts of terror. More than 20 people died in election-related violence.
If and when he settles down for a second term, Mr Karzai must take note of the shift in America’s policy. With the Iraq war virtually behind it, the Obama administration is now concentrating on Afghanistan where the number of American troops is likely to go up from the existing 20,000 to 68,000 by December. At the same time, Washington has made it clear that the ‘surge’ does not preclude the possibility of talking to ‘moderate’ Taliban.
What Mr Karzai must note is that it is not only the Afghans who want peace; there is evidence of considerable war-weariness among the Nato nations, coinciding as the situation does with the international economic crisis. It is doubtful if Mr Karzai is ready to make bold policy decisions and chart a new course of action that could bring the war to an end. His years in power since the 2004 election have been characterised by corruption and incompetence.
More regretfully, Afghanistan remains the world’s number one drug producer, and he has allied himself with warlords known to be criminals, like Tajik chief Qassim Fahim and Rashid Dostum, the Uzbek who has been accused of suffocating hundreds of prisoners to death in sealed containers. It remains to be seen whether a new mandate will enable Mr Karzai to reach out to the militants for a durable peace in his war-torn country.
