Confirmation of the Farce

By Dave Anderson:

The farce of legitimacy has been confirmed. President Karzai has finangled his way back into the spoil seat of the Presidency of Kabul and nominally Afghanistan. Here is the BBC's report:

Dr Abdullah, who had demanded key poll officials quit, said he did not think it would be a free and fair vote.

The first round of the vote, in August, was marred by mass electoral fraud.

"We declare Hamid Karzai, which [sic] got the majority of votes in the first round and [since] he is the only candidate for the second round... be declared as elected president of Afghanistan," said IEC spokesman Azizullah Lodin at Monday's news conference in Kabul.

Everyone "knew" that this would be the result by hook or by crook. The election commission was authorizing and supporting the same set-up of phantom polling stations, inadequate supervision and rolling openings and closures that allowed for them to easily discount 1.7 million Karzai ballots the first time. To anyone who cared to look for evidence, the fix was in. And it had to be in for a Tajik to win, would further alienate the Pashtuns instead of only alienate the Pashtuns who think they can get a better deal for themselves with Karzai out of the way.

Given that US counterinsurgency doctrine is predicated upon the US supporting a legitimate but weak government, this is a mild problem when everyone involved knows the election and thus legitimacy has been a farce.

Comments

[Lex]

There's no question about fraud in the first round or the fraud that would have taken place in the run off. What seems conspicuously absent from the larger discussion is that there appears to have been fraud to benefit Abdullah too. (And this doesn't take into account governor/warlords telling citizens how to vote.)

The larger problem is that the Obama administration made a rather big deal out of the elections and the idea of "legitimacy". One would think that pre-election analysis suggested the distinct possibility of wide-spread fraud. Was it ignored? Was it meant to be a tool to sideline Karzai? (the whisper campaign has been in full effect since Obama took office)

Shy of withdrawal or the idea that the administration was setting up a good excuse for withdrawing (seems unlikely), we're left with the administration having painted itself into a corner while trying to decide how to proceed.

It's alienated Karzai, who i expect will start cutting his own deals with insurgent groups and quite possibly moving closer to other regional players (the China-Russia-India alliance comes to mind).

I can't help but wonder if we're seeing another case of the best laid plans of mice and men going their usual direction.
Lex

[geoff]

The spin being fed to the media as of 10 o'clock news was that NATO etc. were unwilling to sacrifice any more to securing the second round. Pretty hilarious but now at least we know for certain that we are in the magical thinking world. I think it has taken just about a year to get here again from the think Bush knew who his successor was to be in the kingdom.

[Russ Wellen]

Given that US counterinsurgency doctrine is predicated upon the US supporting a legitimate but weak government, this is a mild problem when everyone involved knows the election and thus legitimacy has been a farce.

Yeah, hadn't thought of that. I had been hoping that this undemocratic process provided the perfect pretext for leaving.