The second Afghan Presidential elections which concluded on 20 August 2009 were marked by a low voter turnout, of approximately 40 per cent, allegations of widespread fraud and 400 incidents of violence- making it the most violent day in Afghanistan since 2001. Hamid Karzai’s failure to build upon the previous electoral verdict, which gave to him support of 55 per cent of the electorate- based on a high voter turnout of 70 per cent, and the resultant corruption and lack of governance created a sense of despondency amongst an already war weary electorate, many of whom chose to stay away. This coupled with the threat of the use of violence by the Taliban, kept away a large number of women voters. Although these elections have been held under extremely trying circumstances and thus their conduct was not expected to be perfect however, the widespread allegations of corruption and fraud has only served to make matters much worse. The UN backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) is investigating 726 serious allegations of major vote fraud and over 2000 complaints of fraud and intimidation. These developments have ruffled feathers in the west and undermined Kazai’s moral standing both in the international community and back home.

With 91.6 per cent of the votes counted thus far the IEC has given the incumbent President Hamid Karzai a lead, securing 54.1 per cent of the total ballots cast compared to his closest rival Dr Abdullah Abdullah who has secured 28.3 per cent of the votes. However this entire exercise may possibly begin to falter with the EEC’s decision of 10 September, as it declared that it has found “clear and convincing evidence of fraud” in Paktia, Kandahar and Ghazni provinces. The EEC in its statement said that the “ballots were not legally cast or legally counted”. It has ordered an invalidation of ballots cast in 51 polling stations in Kandahar province, 5 in Paktia province and 27 in the Ghazni province. It has also ordered the Independent Election Commission (IEC) to conduct an audit and recount of ballot boxes where more than 95 per cent of the votes have been cast in favor of one candidate or in polling stations where there has been a 100 per cent turnout.

Paktia and Kandahar are two significant provinces in the Pushtun dominated south, out of the 20 provinces in which Karzai happens to be leading- securing 82.2 per cent and 87.7 per cent of the vote respectively- as against Abdullah Abdullah who is leading in 12 provinces, eight of which are in the Tajik dominated north. While in Ghazni Karzai has secured 42.4 per cent of the votes, thus making him a close second to another presidential hopeful Ramazan Bardosht who has secured 46.6 per cent of the votes. Gauging from both the volume as well as the serious nature of complaints, one gets the sense that this only the beginning of the process of unraveling the Afghan elections, touted as a reasonable success only a few weeks back. The EEC’s decision is likely to have certain serious ramifications for Afghanistan.

First, if the number of ballots invalidated amounts to a cancellation of a sufficient number of votes that were cast in favor of Hamid Karzai it could reduce his majority to under 50 per cent, thus forcing a run off in the presidential race. If this were to happen the run off would take place with the onset of the winter season in the country, rendering many remote parts inaccessible and thus making the any nationwide poll process nearly impossible. It would also multiply the security challenges involved manifold. On the other hand a decision to honestly implement the EEC’s decision of re-run of the polls either in part or in toto and a fair audit would augur well for democracy in Afghanistan. However given the ground realities in Afghanistan a rerun of the entire polls seems highly unlikely.

Second, further investigations by the EEC as well IEC’s compliance with the EEC order could at least take up to 3 months, putting the country in a state of limbo. This certainly will not augur well for Afghanistan’s stability and could potentially trigger of a period of intense political turmoil, which neither Afghanistan nor the international community can afford at this juncture.

Extricating Afghanistan out of this political quagmire, by attempting to cobble together a conciliatory alliance government in Kabul by the international community will be an extremely challenging task, an indication of which can already be seen in Abdullah Abdullah’s stance “a government whose record is very low, with corruption, it was called a narco state; rule of law, non existent, and on top of that it has committed ... fraud ... I don't see a place for myself in that sort of a government."

In a country that is rife with corruption, is war fatigued, is fighting one of the most fierce insurgencies and has historically not known peaceful transfer of power, the key players on the political chessboard will have to tread with extreme caution, for even one wrong move could potentially result in them being checkmated in the game thus ensuring what could perhaps be Afghanistan’s irreversible descent into chaos.