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The Afghan standoff

With allegations of rigging and ballot stuffing in as many as four provinces, the case is reportedly being sent over to the judicial authorities for a preview. Nonetheless, the lead vote-taker in the first round, Abdullah-Abdullah, true to his credentials, believes that it is an issue of the United Nations and has asked the international community to intervene. However, Abdullah’s rival Dr Ashraf Ghani, a former World Bank executive, says that it is a ploy to delay the vote count, and secret recordings without a court order are illegal and must be investigated. But for the Afghans it is déjà vu. The same thing had happened in 2009, when Hamid Karzai held on the presidency amid allegations of large-scale fraud. Even then Abdullah-Abdullah had withdrawn from the second round on similar charges of administrative wrangling.

The question is what’s next? How long can the standoff continue, and what powers does the embattled election commission have to supersede such bottlenecks. And last but not the least what message is the in-fight sending across to an electorate that had overwhelmingly taken to the ballot by defying the Taleban threat? If the process of vote count is delayed any further, and the winner is not announced in real-time, it will strengthen the agenda of reactionary forces that want to see Afghanistan down the drain in the Stone Age. It’s time for both the candidates to rise above petty political differences and let the verdict of the masses be heard loud and clear. There is always a loser in the electoral process, and it is not necessary that he is down and out of the fray of popular representation. Abdullah and Ghani have to establish their democratic credentials by acting big and looking at the bigger picture of peace and progress of the war-torn country.

The most fundamental issue that the new president has to address is to assent the Bilateral Security Agreement earlier signed with the United States. Though both the candidates have nodded in affirmative to sign on the dotted line, once in presidency, the issue has gathered immense importance in the backdrop of upheavals in Iraq where the extremist elements are marching on Baghdad by ruthlessly dislodging the writ of the government. Afghanistan has to be saved from another Taleban or Al Qaeda takeover, and the best way to do that is to stabilise the security environment by buoying local military and intelligence gathering. The Americans too have to do some soul-searching and get introspective while they beef-up Afghan security, and closely scrutinise the ills and blunders that made their trained army in Iraq meltdown without firing a shot in the air. Abdullah and Ghani are the men of the moment and their magnanimity is up for test.