Given that the Afghan election depends heavily on donkey power to deliver and collect the ballot boxes in some of the remoter regions, it is likely to be at least two weeks before the outcome of yesterday's presidential election becomes clear. But the millions of dollars the incumbent, Hamid Karzai, is reported to have spent to guarantee electoral success, and the repellent political deals he has engaged in to shore up his power base, mean that no one in Afghanistan seriously believes the president is about to be ousted from power.
However, if he does serve a second term, it will be no thanks to the efforts of the Western coalition that continues to prop up his regime. In fact, the likely election result is precisely the opposite of the outcome British and American officials hoped for when the election date was first set earlier this year.
Although the president was once revered in the West as the golden boy of Afghan politics, his standing had fallen so low that the coalition's unofficial slogan was "Anyone but Karzai".
It is not just the allegations of corruption that have attached themselves to the Afghan leader that have led to the decline of his political fortunes. Using public office for personal gain is part and parcel of Afghan political life, and a politician who abjures such temptations will lack credibility among the country's notoriously venal tribal elders.
But the alleged involvement of Ahmad Wali Karzai, the president's younger half-brother, in drug-trafficking – which he denies – together with the multi-million pound business empire constructed by Mahmoud Karzai, his elder brother, has led to accusations that the Karzai clan has turned Afghanistan into a family business.
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