Afghanistan and Karzai’s Bombshell

If anyone ever doubted President Hamid Karzai’s capabilities as a politician, they would have changed their opinion about the Afghan leader this week.

By asking the country’s Election Commission to advance the presidential elections, originally scheduled for August, the Afghan president has played a master stroke, dropping a virtual bombshell and shocking both the Americans and Afghan people.

Many see this as a desperate attempt by the besieged Afghan leader to outsmart the new administration in Washington that has already let it be known to everyone concerned that it’s not too happy with the performance of the Karzai government on virtually all fronts.

The Barack Obama administration, which has vowed to focus on the war in Afghanistan even as it wraps up the operations in Iraq, clearly believes President Karzai has outlived his sell-by date and is not doing enough to confront the myriad problems plaguing the country.

For his part, sensing this chill in Washington President Karzai has stepped up his criticism of the US air strikes and coalition attacks that have increasingly targeted innocent civilians.

This is why Karzai’s moves to advance the presidential vote from August to April have not been received well in Washington.

It’s all the more frustrating for the Obama administration considering President Karzai never consulted his American friends, who are primarily responsible for lodging him in Kabul after the fall of Taleban regime, before asking the Election Commission to hold the polls next month. However, it appears President Karzai has a credible enough reason to justify his actions. His second term as president expires on May 21. So if elections are not held in April and he is not re-elected, he cannot continue beyond May 21 without a popular mandate.

Not that many Afghans see his successive poll victory and mandate as truly fair and democratic but that’s a different debate altogether. Without doubt, this is a quandary for Washington as 
well as other members of the US-led coalition 
of the willing.

But even if you accept President Karzai’s apparently reasonable argument, it’s not feasible to conduct elections at such a short notice. Especially in a country that is at war and nearly a hundred thousand troops foreign and Taleban insurgents are fighting all over the country.

Except the capital Kabul, no part of the country is totally secure and in total control of the Afghan or coalition forces. Now even Kabul is not safe any more. The recent suicide attacks targeting several government buildings in the capital are a clear testimony to the growing power and high morale of Taleban.

Let’s face it. The numerous problems Afghanistan battles today cannot be wished away by holding yet another election under the shadow of guns, especially when it has little credibility in the eyes of Afghan people and 
international community.

The last thing Afghanistan needs now is friction between the US administration and Afghan leadership. Whatever their differences, they must sort them out at the earliest in the larger interest of Afghanistan and its future. Election or no election, this is no time for a tug-of-war between Washington and Kabul.