Democracy is not just an ink stain on a finger. It is the will of the people at the ballot box, and it has not been seen in Afghanistan. As the results add up from last month’s presidential elections, President Karzai is inching towards a significant first-round victory over Abdullah Abdullah, his principal challenger. Meanwhile, a picture is emerging of widespread vote rigging, ballot stuffing and intimidation. On Monday, the toll of British war dead in Afghanistan reached 210. They did not die for this.
Before the elections, Mark Sedwill, the British Ambassador to Kabul, admitted that the polls would be “rough and ready”, and that Britain would “fall in behind” the process unless there were “significant issues” around the result. Now the Afghan Election Complaints Commission is investigating 2,500 allegations of electoral abuse, including 567 that could affect the outcome. If that is not significant, what is?
In the past few years, Britain has expressed concern about the integrity of elections in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Iran. This one is our problem. The Government of Mr Karzai is defended and funded by the West. We cannot continue to commit blood and treasure to a fraud.
If President Karzai were to be returned by means of a stolen election, this would not be the first of his actions to have made our presence in Afghanistan harder to justify, rather than easier. In March, he approved a law that condoned marital rape. In the run-up to this election, he allowed Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Uzbek warlord with a string of nasty allegations to his name, to return from exile in Turkey to campaign on his behalf. His vice-presidential candidate, Mohammad Qasim Fahim, has a reputation only slightly better.
Such things could almost be excused in a country where warlords retain mass support. Increasingly, though, Mr Karzai’s Government gives off a stench of corruption of a more conventional sort. The Transparency International index of corruption puts Afghanistan at 176th out of 180 countries — down from 117th in 2006. Mr Karzai himself is not blind to this. “The banks of the world are full of the money of our statesmen,” he said in January. His own half-brother, meanwhile, has been accused by Western diplomats of high-level involvement in the drug trade.
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For the US, the UK and Nato, all of this is hard to swallow. A stolen election would be harder still, and should be seen as a career-defining test of Richard Holbrooke, President Obama’s envoy to the region. Mr Holbrooke has won plaudits for encouraging the Pakistani Government to deal with Taleban fighters on its side of the border, but his relations with Mr Karzai have grown increasingly strained. Last week, Mr Holbrooke is said to have suggested that election irregularities could be settled by a second round of voting — effectively a rerun. Mr Karzai’s reaction has been described as “explosive”.
Gordon Brown, on his surprise visit to troops in Helmand last weekend, barely mentioned the elections at all. This was both depressing and unsurprising. Many in the West may feel that President Karzai remains Afghanistan’s least-worst option. He sports no worrying flowing beard and he speaks fluent English with an American accent. He is also a Pashtun, whereas Abdullah Abdullah is half-Tajik. Nonetheless, if he has stolen this election, the West must not be afraid to pull the rug from beneath his feet.
Today, international and Afghan envoys meet in Paris for long-planned discussions on the future of Afghanistan. Their recommendation looks likely to be a national government, still under the stewardship of Mr Karzai. Now is not a time to “fall in” behind the election results. Now is a time to prepare to fall out with them.