Good news from Afghanistan this weekend was that the presidential polls were held in a relatively peaceful and calm manner – which by itself is a great achievement, considering the chaos that reined the landlocked nation for the past few decades; and with little let-up. Taliban groups staged several attacks, but no major one, signifying the security preparedness for the polls was praiseworthy. It would take three weeks to know who among the main contenders – incumbent Ashra Ghani or Abdullah Abdullah – will have the last laugh.
There is considerable relief on the side of the Western powers as also India that backed the sprout of democratic process there, that matters of governance are showing signs of some maturity over the past few years. However, Afghanistan needs to journey miles and miles before it can rest in peace. Lakhs of deaths in violence have been reported from the troubled nation since the turn of the century, and the dance of death is continuing despite the presence of US forces. Truce talks between Taliban and the West are reaching nowhere. Amid all these, and amid plans for withdrawal of much of the US troops, the peaceful holding of presidential polls offers a ray of hope to the mountainous nation.
Democracy was given a try first when Hamid Karzai was in power after the turn of the century with US and Indian support. It was not easy controlling the warlords who called much of the shots outside of the capital Kabul. Slowly but steadily, there was some turnaround up until Ashraf Ghani took over as president and Karzai took the back seat. Ghani’s immediate instinct was to build bridges with the Pakistani establishment and turn his face away from India – the reverse of a policy that India-friendly Karzai followed between 2004 and 2014. It took time for Ghani to understand his folly, but by this time, the gains that Karzai made for Afghanistan had been partly lost.
Abdullah served as chief executive of Afghanistan since the 2014 presidential polls — when he and Ghani were the principal contestants but the two arrived at a consensus for joint rule thereafter. The 2014 polls were marred by allegations of fraud, a brief deadlock and recounting, which finally gave Ghani the upper hand. Then emerged the consensus between the two to rule the nation jointly as president and chief executive. How things pan out this time remains to be seen. So far so good. Afghanistan badly needs political stability.