Whatever the outcome of last Thursday's Afghan presidential poll, it doesn't look very good for democracy, argues Gamal Nkrumah Many in the West will cheer the news that Hamid Karzai has won a landslide victory in last Thursday's presidential poll. Yet, the bitter truth is that the presidential poll offered precious few answers to the big questions of Afghanistan's current crisis. The performance of Karzai in the run-up to the presidential poll has been little short of dismal. The resurgence of Taliban poses a threat to the nascent democracy of Afghanistan. According to United Nations statistics, civilian deaths in Afghanistan sharply increased by 40 per cent last year to 2,118 -- the highest death toll since the ousting of the Taliban regime in 2001. Karzai has extended the olive branch to moderates within the Taliban movement. But, there is more to dealing with Taliban than simply giving it a thrash. Taliban militants cut off the ink- stained fingers of two voters in Kandahar Province, a hotbed of militant Islamists in Afghanistan, shortly after casting ballots. Yet this is not enough. Breaking the cycle of lawlessness, narcotic- trafficking and corruption, Afghanistan needs to break free of the cycle of violence. Obama's appointment of Richard Holbrooke, whose stalwart diplomatic skills helped end the Bosnian debacle, as his special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan earlier this year was a shrewd move. But can Holbrooke redeem Afghanistan the way he did deliver Bosnia? Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission will no doubt be kept busy over the weeks ahead. The US top commander in Afghanistan Stanley McCrystal has expressed grave concern about the security situation in Afghanistan. What makes all this especially alarming is that Taliban is on the warpath. Karzai's lonely quest for consensus is pathetic, to put it bluntly. Taliban is in no mood to listen to his empty promises. And, anticipation is no strength of the Karzai administration. Institutionally and temperamentally, the Taliban has never acceded to Western-style multiparty democracy. It upholds the idealised democracy of pristine Islam. If the West keeps digging in its heels on Afghanistan, it will only complicate matters further, by denying the Afghan people a chance to work out their own salvation. "Afghanistan is very vulnerable in terms of Taliban and extremists taking over," noted Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Mike Mullen this week. Mullen warned that the "Taliban insurgency has gotten better and more sophisticated." He added that the situation in Afghanistan was "serious and deteriorating." Ominously, the Obama administration has signalled dissatisfaction with the Karzai regime. But whatever the reasons for Karzai's looming downfall, the change when it comes is set to mark a definite break with Afghanistan's recent past. For nearly nine years Afghan politics has been dominated by warlords and tribal leaders in the barely veiled disguise of civilian politicians with ideologies quite alien to the political parties that spawned them. The warlords and tribal leaders evinced little sympathy for the institutions and democratic traditions of the Western occupiers. After the fall of Taliban, its rank and file saw the flame kept alive by a small but fanatical cadre of die-hard loyalist to the militant Islamist cause. Moreover, they were determined to keep the faith even at the expense of their Islamist consensual style of government, democratisation and Afghanistan's budding electoral process. In the past Afghanistan's political establishment was destroyed by ideological warfare between Communists and Islamists. As far as the Taliban are concerned, Karzai is as godless as the Communists of yesteryear. The embattled incumbent Afghan president tried reshuffles and re-launches to no avail. He faced an assault not only from the Taliban, but also from the warlords of northern Afghanistan. "He uses the state apparatus in order to rig the election," the pro-Western liberal Abdullah Abdullah, once Karzai's suave and sophisticated foreign minister, has emerged as one of the most trenchant critics of the incumbent Afghan president. Abdullah, the leading challenger to Karzai, is of mixed Tajik and Pashtun heritage. He is, however, particularly popular with Afghanistan's ethnic Tajik minority -- the second largest in the country after the Pashtun. Abdullah noted that foreign observers were confined to "safe areas" and alleged that voters carrying boxes of voter cards were sighted in several areas. Underage voters were also seen casting their votes, which made a mockery of Afghan democracy. One can never divorce democracy in Afghanistan from all this. Political change cannot be achieved through the ballot box alone. The sudden enthusiasm for democracy in some quarters is no proof or guarantee of a resurgent democratic spirit in Afghanistan. We cannot say how much longer Karzai has. What we know is that Afghanistan's political establishment looks set to return closer to its Islamic roots. The fusion of Pashtun nationalism with militant Islamism is curtailing local government's capacity to ensure the rule of law in the rugged, and largely lawless, country. Trying to set limits to militant Islamist influence in Afghanistan is a futile exercise. Stuffed ballots boxed in favour of Karzai will certainly neither institute nor further the cause of democratisation in Afghanistan. The rather unideological, pragmatic and paternalistic style of government favoured by Karzai has failed to inspire his people. He is being subsumed by an Islamist tide that threatens to turn into a tsunami. Weak government, foreign interference and corruption helped Talibanise Afghanistan in the late 1980s and 1990s. Today, Karzai cannot prevent his war-torn country from falling to the Taliban once again. So what is to be done? A good starting point would be to incorporate elements of Taliban, especially the more moderate factions, into Afghanistan's political establishment. Taliban has to become part of the decision-making process in the country. The only way forward is to heal the nation of its mortal wounds. These cannot be permitted to fester on. The moral war against Taliban should be two-pronged. On the one hand, Afghans must understand that terrorism is morally wrong. On the other hand, it must be understood by all and sundry that the West, NATO to be precise, is losing its grip on Afghanistan. This erosion of Western military prowess in Afghanistan might not necessarily derail the nascent democratic experiment of Afghanistan, but it can complicate developments further. The West cannot go too far. A Karzai victory will burnish Afghanistan's reputation. Image- conscious Karzai will no doubt squirm. It would also have lit up the faces of the sceptics who have long questioned the incumbent president's political acumen. Afghanistan, however, would gain in three ways. First, that the world will understand better that Karzai is brilliant at playing political charades. Second that Western powers had been carrying out a charade of fine-tuning the democratic process in Afghanistan. Third, that Karzai is reducing the very process of espousing democracy and negotiating with opponents to a charade. The bottom line is clear. If no quick fixes are pursued, then ill-starred Afghanistan will fast be heading for disaster and will, alas, have to go through cold turkey.
