Afghanistan votes

Thursday's presidential election in Afghanistan, the second since the Taliban were forced from power in 2001, was followed with great interest by the international community. It was monitored closely because the Taliban tried their best to disrupt the voting, the poll offered the Afghan people a chance to consolidate their country's fragile democracy and the incumbent President faced a real challenge to his position.

Voter turnout is estimated to have been between 40 to 50 per cent, which is considerably less than the 70 per cent figure of the 2004 election but is nevertheless satisfactory considering the threat posed by the Taliban. The vote-counting process in Afghanistan is long and complicated and the final result will be declared in about two to three weeks. However, the two leading candidates, President Hamid Karzai and former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, have both claimed victory, so the result will probably be close, which is a healthy sign.

Forty-one candidates contested this election, including two women, the most prominent ones being Mr Karzai, Mr Abdullah, former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai and former Minister of Planning Ramazan Bashardost.

President Karzai will probably get the largest number of votes, but it remains to be seen whether he will get an absolute majority of votes like he did in 2004. If he does not, he will face a run-off election in October against the candidate with the second highest number of votes, who is expected to be Abdullah Abdullah.

There is no doubt that President Karzai has disappointed many of his countrymen as well as the international community for his inability over the last few years to provide basic services and security and to clamp down on corruption which is said to be rampant in Afghanistan. Furthermore, the Taliban, who have exploited this situation, control vast areas of the country and seem to be growing in strength, even though American and British forces recently made some headway in the Taliban stronghold of Helmand during Operation Panther's Claw, a massive military operation in that province.

Karzai has also come under fire for his deals, in the run-up to the election, with warlords and other controversial figures. Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, called Karzai's deal allowing the return of Abdul Rashid Dostum one of Afghanistan's most appalling warlords "appalling".

General Dostum, an Uzbek military commander suspected of having committed atrocities is the past against Taliban prisoners, was allowed to return to Afghanistan from exile in Turkey in a deal many view as having secured Uzbek support for Karzai in the election.

Karzai has defended his decision, saying the ethnic Uzbeks would not have voted without Dostum's local leadership. In these situations, such decisions are always controversial and subject to criticism. After all, if a deal with the Taliban is also a possibility - both Karzai and Abdullah are in favour of a dialogue with elements of the Taliban, why not with General Dostum, in the interests of reconciliation?

It is not surprising, therefore, that Mr Karzai's re-election is not a foregone conclusion. Neither is Washington's apparent erosion of support for the President. Unlike the 2004 election, when the US openly backed Karzai, it is now believed Washington would be more comfortable with a victory for Abdullah or a deal between Karzai and Ghani Ahmadzai in a run-off election.

Only recently, for example, Karzai signed an outrageous law which allowed Shi'ite husbands the right to deny their wives sustenance if they refuse their sexual demands. Again, this was an attempt to shore up Shi'ite support for Karzai in the presidential election, but it greatly damaged the President's standing within the international community.

US President Barack Obama has taken a lot of political risks in his support for the war against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and coalition casualties are rising, so it should come as no surprise that he wants to see real progress in Kabul.

Obama has sent additional troops to Afghanistan, appointed a new commander and has laid greater emphasis on political and economic reform, the rule of the law and good governance.

"The US priority in Afghanistan today is waging a counterinsurgency war, in which good governance in an important element," Anthony Cordesman of the Centre for Strategic and International studies said recently.

The election was held as General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, prepares to publish his strategic review on the situation in the country in which he is expected to support peace negotiations with Taliban commanders who reject Al-Qaeda.

While this report is eagerly awaited by the international community, there is only so much Nato can do to improve the situation. Real progress must be made by the Afghan government and the incoming President must be prepared to bring about real reform, clamp down on corruption and at the same time pursue a policy of national reconciliation.

This will not be an easy task, but Afghanistan must never be allowed to once again fall into the hands of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Hard choices will have to be made. As he voted, Karzai was asked what he would do if re-elected. He answered: "Do better". Let's hope he does much better.