Afghans go to their third presidential polls tomorrow for the first democratic transition of power in the nation’s history and a surprisingly high turnout of more than 70 per cent is expected. If this happens, it will be a very hopeful indication of the vast majority of Afghan people’s commitment to the new civil society that they have been slowly building, despite the continuous attacks by the Taliban who are desperate to wreck the new inclusive society emerging in Afghanistan. The presidential elections have two front runners: Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah and it is encouraging that neither are former warlords, both have technocratic backgrounds and both have built teams that cross Afghanistan’s deep ethnic groups. The front-runner is Ghani — the country’s most able finance minister, who is a Pashtun, and his running mate is the well-known Uzbek leader, Abdul Rashid Dostum.
Abdullah was foreign minister during the early years of Hamid Karzai’s presidency and has been building his opposition party ever since he came second in the 2009 presidential polls. He is considered a Tajik, even though his mother was Pashtun, and is partnered by Mohammad Mohaqeq, a Hazara, and a Pashtun, Mohammad Khan, who is affiliated with Hezb-e-Islami, a splinter group of the Taliban. It is probably encouraging for the future of Afghanistan that Zalmai Rassoul, the candidate backed by the notably ineffective incumbent, President Karzai, is not doing so well. Karzai was so keen to keep some control over the levers of power that he asked his brother Qayoum Karzai to stand down from the election and gave his support to Rassoul, who was a more credible candidate than Qayoum.
A new administration in Afghanistan with a strong mandate will be much better-placed to tackle the dangerous security issues the country faces and to negotiate with the outgoing Nato-ISAF forces about their retreat from Afghanistan. Both leading candidates have promised to sign the Status of Forces Agreement, which was stalled by Karzai in a dangerous fit of pique with America.
