Afghan government can’t cope with corruption – former presidential candidate
Published: 04 November, 2009, 18:21
Edited: 08 November, 2009, 11:10
Afghanistan, Kabul: A man walks past a giant election poster of Afghan opposition candidate Abdullah Abdullah in Kabul on November 2, 2009 (AFP Photo / Nicolas Asfouri)
(11.1Mb) embed videoTAGS: Conflict, Election, Asia, Middle East, Politics
Former Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah has said Hamid Karzai’s re-election was illegal and new government won’t be able to deal with corruption and terrorism in the country.
Former foreign minister Abdullah withdrew from the November 7 runoff because of concerns over the fairness of the voting. Following that, on November 2, Afghanistan’s election commission cancelled the runoff and declared Karzai the winner, awarding him another five-year term.
According to Abdullah, the commission’s decision was “illegal” and the new government “can’t have legitimacy.” Talking to reporters in Kabul, he said this government can’t deal with the “the threat from terrorism, security problems, poverty, unemployment,” and many other challenges Afghanistan faces.
Meanwhile, in a victory speech on Tuesday, the re-elected Afghan President Hamid Karzai vowed to welcome everyone into his administration, including political opponents and even the Taliban.
"We call on our Taliban brothers to come home and embrace their land," he said.
The Taliban, however, rejected the olive branch offered by Karzai and pledged to continue their fight, labeling the president "a puppet".
"The cancellation of the second round of the vote showed that decisions on Afghanistan are made in Washington and London, while the announcements are made in Kabul," reads the statement issued by the Islamic movement.
Karzai also pledged to eliminate the corruption that undermined his administration.
Afghanistan’s vice president Mohammad Karim Khalili told RT, about the challenges the new government will now be facing.
“Our main issue now is not to involve the Taliban in the government. It is to stop the war. We want our country to be peaceful and we want the Taliban to stop fighting,” he said.
“Every citizen of Afghanistan has the right to take part in ruling the country. We have big financial problems and we’d like the international community to help us solve that,” he went on.
The politician added that they’d “like Dr Abdullah not to refuse to cooperate with us.”
And President Obama has called on the Afghan leader to concentrate on fighting corruption and clean up his government.
Meanwhile, tension between President Karzai’s government and the US-led coalition has been raised after the Defense Ministry in Kabul said eight Afghans working with US forces were killed in a NATO air strike in the north-west of the country.
The “friendly fire” incident happened when US and Afghan forces were under insurgent attack during search operations for two American soldiers.
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Abdullah may be right, but what is his present strategy to try solve the problem? To pretend the campaign season is extant? Will he now flee a sinking ship, aka his country, or try to save it somehow? Perhaps his present tactic is to use his leverage to try to persuade Karzai to make reforms Abdullah wants. The election is over; the UN found sufficient fraud to force a runoff, but the fact of the matter was that Karzai got the most votes even by the UN tally. Therefore, in a sense the end result has been democratic; albeit, it is also legally illegitimate because by law a run off should've been held. The Vice President's expressed desire for all Afghans to be involved in the political process is perhaps ominous in the sense that the Karzai government has been viewed as corrupt precisely because it has institutionalized many corrupt individuals: warlords, the president's brother, and so forth. As a show of good faith in its supposed commitment to cleansing corruption, it should rid itself of the officials who are most responsible for such corruption. It didn't do so when Abdullah requested certain election officials guilty of fraud be removed from the government. I don't have high hopes it will do so from now hence; though we will see. There seem to be no good solutions to the Afghanistan problem. Leaving would be a big risk and so would staying. I suppose for simplicity's sake then, I am now for us leaving; although I feel very uncertain about what we should do. I wouldn't envy being in Obama's shoes.