Afghan election can bring hope

The attack on the convoy carrying Afghan Presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah has quickly been labelled by observers as yet another example of the hopeless situation in the war-torn country; of the impossibility of holding a viable election which Taliban insurgents have promised to disrupt and destroy; of the futility of the continued involvement of the United States and its allies there.

Another opportunity for journalists to trot out that tired old phrase “the unwinnable war”.

However, the election will take place on Saturday and it will be between two eminently qualified candidates. Abdullah is a former medical specialist, the urbane, measured spokesman for the Northern Alliance in its darkest days and close friend of Alliance leader, Ahmad Shah Massoud, the ‘Lion of Panjshir’, assassinated in 2001 just hours before the planes flew into the Twin Towers.   

While initially serving as Foreign Minister in the Hamid Karzai Government, Abdullah became disenchanted at the extent of corruption and resigned to fight the 2009 election against Karzai, finishing second with more than 30 per cent of the vote. In the first round of voting this time he was well ahead of other candidates but short of the 50 per cent needed, so is facing a run-off against second-placed Ashraf Ghani.

Ghani, who finished fourth in the 2009 poll, is a former World Bank economist. He has been active at the United Nations and after returning to Afghanistan in 2002 was the country’s first post-Taliban Finance Minister.

The point being that either candidate is quite capable of taking the country to its next phase in which Afghans increasingly take full charge of security while its institutions and infrastructure is gradually repaired.

Of course this cannot be done without continuing international assistance and both candidates have promised to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement with the US which Karzai, for reasons best known to himself, has refused to accept.

Abdullah does not mince words when he says the Taliban leadership “is not fighting to be accommodated, it is fighting to bring down the state”.  He stresses continuing military strength while remaining hopeful that a door can be opened for more moderate elements to join a peace process.  

Ghani is highlighting a program of national reconstruction, providing education and employment opportunities for young people that will gradually whittle away the Taliban’s support base.

The continuing conflict in Afghanistan will never see the signing of a surrender document or a victory parade through Kabul. In that sense commentators are right when they refer to an ‘unwinnable war’, but they are talking about a type of warfare that belongs to history.

What this war does have in common with wars of the past is that it will end. It well end when the vast majority of people on both sides see there is no point in continuing; when a compromise can be reached that is acceptable to the  middle ground.

So much rubbish has been spoken about the Afghans as being a people apart – a nation of warriors in love with perpetual warfare who, if there is no invader to fight, will turn on themselves.

Most Afghans want nothing more than people want everywhere – to get on with their lives, to raise children, to see their families prosper. The coming election will be a small step towards those goals; a defiance of fanaticism and an expression of confidence that although the going will be hard, peace will eventually come.