Ghani's dubious victory

According to preliminary results, President Ashraf Ghani has been re-elected, a victory that has not only been rejected by his principal rival Abdullah Abdullah but given its slim margin it also lacks finality. He secured 50.64 percent votes which is enough to avert second round, but not enough to be sure as the head of Independent Election Commission (IEC), Hawa Alam Nuristani, says the outcome could change after final results and was still subject to review. The United States ambassador in Kabul too thinks these results are 'preliminary', as "many steps remain before election results are certified". The last presidential election, in 2014, had also suffered from such uncertainties, but the US successfully persuaded the losing candidate to share power with Ashraf Ghani as Chief Executive, a post carved out as a solution. But now President Ghani has rejected possibility of power-sharing with Abdullah or anyone else including Gulbadin Hekmatyar from his own Ghilzai tribe who secured the third position in the electoral race joined by about a dozen presidential candidates. Welcoming his electoral victory, Ashraf Ghani told a jubilant gathering: "we are moving now from uncertainty to a bright future". Given turnout characterised by less than one-fifth of the listed voters, Abdullah is more tougher than before. President Ghani's elation appears to be misplaced if the US' earnest desire to cut a peace deal with Taliban and quit Afghanistan is taken into account. Unfortunately, however, latest presidential election has all the making of a pessimistic development. Not only does it tend to sharpen the north-south ethnic divide, it also puts a question mark over the IEC's capacity to hold an election the outcome of which is acceptable across the board.

With Abdullah and Hekmatyar standing on the other side of the election divide, President Ghani is up against a huge challenge, a position that gets all the more pugnacious given Taliban's opposition to him from day one. According to UN reports, on the very day election was held 85 civilians were killed and more than 370 wounded in militant attacks. Ashraf Ghani's pyrrhic victory is also likely to add to the Taliban's clout at Doha talks with the United States, as they remain reluctant to connect with the Afghan government. That both the US and the then Soviet Union are responsible for destroying peace and stability of Afghanistan is a fact. Both Russia (successor state to the Soviet Union) and the US, therefore must join hands to expand the format and scope of Afghan peace process. The hurried departure of UN force from Afghanistan would completely destroy whatever little base for democratic dispensation has come about over the last decade or so in this landlocked country. Unless one thinks of some out-of-the-box remedy to the emerging Afghan imbroglio, Afghanistan seems set on way to another spell of political uncertainty. And the solution could be in what IEC chief termed "review" in the light of complaints against fairness of the election. A recount may take away President Ghani's less than one percent victory lead. Candidates now have three days to file complaints before final results are announced, and Abdullah says he would contest the vote. According to him, "the election commission has sided with fraudsters. There is no doubt we are the winners of the election based on the clean votes of the people". His assertion is supported by the Transparent Electoral Foundation of Afghanistan, an independent watchdog, which has demanded the IEC share all information about the vote.