Word: karzai
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...watchdog body, has spent more than a month counting votes from the Aug. 20 election, trying to weed out the fraudulent ballots that may account for as much as 20% of the 5.5 million votes cast. When these tainted ballots are discounted, the front-runner and incumbent, President Hamid Karzai, may yet emerge as the first-round winner, even though his loyalists were the most brazen vote riggers. But if his tally falls below 50%, Karzai might be forced into a runoff against his former Foreign Minister, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. U.N. officials are already rushing to print new ballots...
...monthly salary of $150, the loyalty of an Afghan cop will only go so far when his outpost at some bleak crossroads is ambushed by the Taliban. And while the Taliban forces are often highly motivated, there may not be that many Afghans willing to die to defend the Karzai government. (See TIME's pictures of the fight for Afghanistan's Kunar province...
...things stand, Karzai will likely be confirmed as Afghanistan's President by November, muddied though he may by widespread election fraud. Washington must then decide: Is it worth backing a man who forfeited the trust of many Afghans and of the international community whom the harried President has tried to scapegoat for his government's corrupt incompetence...
...answer may be that Washington has no better alternative. Despite his growing paranoia - Karzai rarely leaves his presidential palace these days - and his failure to crack down on unsavory characters in his government (and perhaps in his own family), Karzai shouldn't be entirely written off. It is worth remembering a few of his assets: he is a Pashtun from the respected Popalzai tribe, credentials that may assist him in trying to negotiate with the predominantly Pashtun Taliban. (These recent elections reopened old schisms between the Pashtuns and the Tajiks, and if Abdullah, who is widely perceived as a Tajik...
...Security Adviser Jim Jones warily favor the military's request for more troops. But Vice President Joe Biden and, perhaps, the President remain skeptics - and rightly so, since any military policy depends on whether the Afghan government can regain some credibility after the flagrantly corrupt August elections. If Hamid Karzai limps into a second term but does not make some major reforms - like removing his brother from power in Kandahar province - we will not have the legitimate local government that the military's counterinsurgency strategy requires...