Who will benefit from re-run of Presidential election?

Who will benefit from the re-run of the Presidential elections in Afghanistan? No-one except the the insurgents is my guess. The whole election process is now mired by corruption allegations and has left President Karzai looking like a spiv, willing to do a deal with anyone who will give him a vote.
Even before the voting began, Karzai had brought disrepute on himself by doing deals with warlords and local power brokers in order to win votes. Worst of all, he allowed General Dostum to return to the country from exile in Turkey in order to garner the votes of his Uzbek and Turcoman followers. This was despite the fact that there is a strong possibility war crimes charges will be brought against the General over his treatment of Taliban prisoners in late 2001.
Nor is it only the present incumbent who looks bad. So too does the United Nations, whose top officials were clearly divided on whether or not another election should take place. In September Peter Galbraith, the deputy head of the UN Mission, abruptly left the country after refusing to take part in what he called "a cover-up" of fraud.
Galbraith, son of the great American economist and a former US ambassador to Croatia, said that before the 20 August election, he wanted to take steps to minimise fraud by eliminating "ghost" polling stations in Taliban-held territory - but his boss, Norwegian Mr Kai Eide, rejected the proposal.
During the election, the UN collected data on fraud - but Mr Eide ordered that it not be shared with the Election Complaints Commission, he said. And after the election, Mr Eide objected to Mr Galbraith's insistence that the Independent Election Commission stick to its published anti-fraud criteria, he added.
"I was not prepared to be complicit in a cover-up or in an effort to downplay the fraud that took place. I felt we had to face squarely the fraud that took place. Kai downplayed the fraud."
A few weeks later and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the dismissal of Mr Galbraith "in the best interest of the mission". Galbraith's account of the whole mess is horrifying.
Soon after that one of the two Afghans on a UN-backed commission looking into vote fraud in the election resigned, citing interference by foreigners. Maulavi Mustafa Barakzai alleged that the three foreigners on the panel — one American, one Canadian and one Dutch national— were “making all decisions on their own” without consultation. The complaints commission rejected the allegation.
Now that it has finally been decided to hold another election, it begs the question of whether or not Mr Galbraith should be reinstated (and Mr Eide sacked), as everything he said was true and the UN is now doing what he said they should do. Either way, the likelihood is that the turn-out will be crushingly low and that Karzai will win, to limp on as a damaged president.
Surely it would have been more sensible to persuade Karzai to share power with Abdullah Abdullah, his rival, and call off the second ballot?
Already Mullah Omar's Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IOA) is gloating over the likely confusion of a second ballot. Yesterday it issued a statement:
"It is now clear as the broad daylight that the August 20 elections in Afghanistan was readily ludicrous and preposterous which caused more shame and disgrace to the surrogate regime in Kabul. Only a minuscule numbers of voters participated in the polling from among the 30 million Afghans. Still the elections were fraught with fraud, ballot stuffing and corruption.
"A great number of Afghans observed a complete boycott. It is still a matter of extreme shame for the supporters of the sham democracy, that they were merely able to announce the results after the passage of two months."
Hard to argue with that. The statement goes on:
"If the Americans and their allies had not their goals and hidden agenda, they would not have blocked the way of the election results from being declared soon. But they did not achieve what they wanted to achieve as a result of the elections.
"This is why they are themselves sacrificing the so-called democracy, which they are supposed to build. By doing so, they have manifested that they are abiding by the rules and the slogans as long as they correspond with their interests. Otherwise, they are not bound by any rule."
That is exactly how it appears to many people in Afghanistan, who will say that the West only supports democracy when it gives the right result.

List of Afghan Presidential candidates

After making a request to the independent electoral commission in Afghanistan for a list of presidential candidates in English earlier this week, I was duly sent the details. At the risk of boring my readers I am going to publish the list in full, not least because it has hardly been circulated. Here is the full list of 41 candidates:

Haji Rahim Jan Shinzad
Mohammad Yasin Safi
Mohammad Sarwar Ahmadzai
Eng. Moin-ul-din Ulfati
Dr. Habib Mangal
Zabih-U-llah Ghazi Noristani
Sayed Jalal Karim
Mirwais Yasini
Bismillah Shir
Bashir Ahmad Bizhan
Motasim Billah Mazhabi
Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai
Abdul Latif Pedram
Shahnawaz Tanai
Dr. Mohammad Nasir Anis
Mulla Abdul Salam Rockity
Zia-ul-haq Hafizi
Mohammad Akbar Oria
Baz Mohammad Kofi - withdrawn
Sangin Mohammad Rahmani
Mahbob-U-lah Koshani
Mohammad Hakim Torsan
Abdul Hasib Arian
Mulla Ghulam Mohammad Rigi
Ramazan Bashardost
Mawlawi Mohammad Sayed Hashimi - withdrawn
Abdul Majid Samim
Nasrullah Baryalai Arsalai - withdrawn
Alhaj Shah Mahmood Popal
Mrs. Shahla Ata
Dr. Ghulam Faroq Nijrabi
Alhaj Abdul Ghafor Zori
Mohammad Hashim Tawfiqi
Haji Hasan Ali Sultani
Hamid Karzai
Mawlana Abdul Qadir Imami Ghori
Dr. Abdullah Abdullah
Dr. Ferozan Fanah
Abdul Jabar Sabit
Hidayat Amin Arsala
Gul Ahmmad Yama

There is no indication of political party for any of the candidates, most of whom are unknown. However, there are two women and I recognise the names of several besides the incumbent. There is, for example, Dr Abdullah Abdullah, the former foreign minister who says that President Karzai offered him a plum job if he decided not to run. There is also Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, former finance minister who many people believe is a possible serious contender.
At a slightly different level is Mullah Rockity. Readers may remember him as a former Taliban commander who earned his name due to his prowess with an RPG rocket launcher against the Soviets. After his arrest by the Americans in Kandahar in 2001, he was detained for almost a year before he was released (you can find a more detailed profile here).
Curiously, it appears that rumours are circulating in Kabul that President Karzai may withdraw from the race in favour of either Dr Ghani or Dr Abdullah. The rumours were reported in the newspaper Roznama Mandegar today. Yesterday, another newspaper, Wrazpanra Weesa, reported that up to 20 candidates were about to withdraw in favour of Dr Abdullah. Clearly there is something happening in the Presidential Palace.
Update 26/7/09: Two candidates have withdrawn from the presidential race in the last few days. Nasrullah Baryalai Arsalai withdrew in favour of Dr Abdullah Abdullah and Mawlawi Mohammad Sayed Hashimi, a Shi'ite cleric who leads the Islamic Revolution Movement of Afghanistan, withdrew in favour of Hamid Karzai. More withdrawals are expected in the coming days.
Update 2 - 31/7/09: Candidate Baz Mohammad Kofi announced his withdrawal from the presidential race in Kabul yesterday, urging his supporters to vote for Hamid Karzai.