Although IEC has declared Ashraf Ali Ghani victorious based on preliminary results, this is not end of the story.
KARACHI: The election crisis in Afghanistan has reached an impasse. At the moment, it is impossible for one to know if and when a new government will be installed. Although the election commission has declared Ashraf Ali Ghani victorious based on preliminary results, this is not the end of the story. Ghani’s rival, Abdullah Abdullah, has not accepted this and is now demanding a thorough recount of the votes. He alleges that the election has been ‘engineered’. The US and the EU have, since then, agreed with the demand for a thorough recount. If their demands are not met, financial support for Afghanistan may be adversely affected.
This is not a surprise for those who understand Afghanistan’s political climate and are aware of the fact that democracy does not work in a tribal society. It is open knowledge that Hamid Karzai was never elected in a way that Europe would consider ‘democratic’. He was launched from the Bonn Conference and pushed into a position of power with the help of Western powers who believed that they would have a pliant pro-Western president in the person of Karzai.
Karzai’s re-election itself was a scandal involving rigging to such a large scale that some of the more sensitive members of Nato tried to find another candidate. This was not taken kindly by Karzai who has, since then, not been sugar-coating his opinion regarding the US and the Western alliance. His new stance, however, is not because of his deep concern for Afghanistan’s national interests but because of his own desire to latch on to power.
Ashraf Ali Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, July 9th, 2014.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
