The presidential election in Afghanistan has been strung out for far too long, as it now stumbles through its weeks-long audit of eight million votes cast in the recent second round of the polls. The men of violence will be delighted to wreck the process and this week, President Hamid Karzai’s cousin, Hashmat Karzai, was killed while receiving Eid callers at his house. He had been an important power-broker in Kandahar and was a key member of the team that was working with presidential front-runner Ashraf Gani.
Gani’s rival Abdullah Abdullah led the first count and was outraged when his obvious lead fell away in the second round. Abdullah alleged fraud and it took US Secretary of State John Kerry to get the two candidates to come to an agreement to both accept an audit of all the votes and take part in a joint government, with the winner becoming president and the runner-up the ‘Chief of the Executive Council’.
Afghanistan is still very fragile and all its politicians need to work together to build solid institutions that the country desperately needs. It is remarkable that the election process has been supported by millions of voters despite Taliban threats and the country has stayed quiet through a very confused process. But this quiescence cannot be taken for granted and the country needs to know who will be the president and who will be its chief executive as soon as possible.
