The Consequences of Afghanistan’s 2014 Presidential Election Impasse
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Malaiz Daud [1]
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[1] CIDOB
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- Localización: Notes internacionals CIDOB, ISSN-e 2013-4428, Nº. 96, 2014, págs. 1-5
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
The Afghan polity is in tatters, as fraudulent elections since 2004 have progressively polarized the leadership. This year’s presidential election could not have come at a worse time, with the security transition taking place and foreign aid dwindling.
Internally, the past three months have been the bloodiest. Taliban have re-launched frontal wars in several provinces in the south and east, even north. The country is expected to lose USD 5 billion in revenue this year.
Afghans are increasingly looking to move out of the country in search of better job opportunities as well as to avoid an uncertain security situation in the aftermath of the expected full withdrawal of the NATO forces.
A national unity government, if formed, will soon disintegrate as the two camps and the apparent spoilers (e.g. Karzai’s network) will be embroiled in an intense power struggle. If no unity government is formed, the country will be more polarized than it has ever been since the Taliban were toppled, which would result in a de facto disintegration of state sovereignty.
It remains to be seen whether Afghan elites manage to overcome the gap in trust created through this election or whether the divisions will become even more profound, with an overtly ethnic dimension to them, despite the fact that both camps include members of all major ethnicities of Afghanistan.
The reality is that irrespective of the current political dispute, the future government will be weaker, less effective and more predatory than the current one, largely because of a number of structural constraints.
