How will Afghanistan election affect U.S. interests?

A longtime opponent to President Hamid Karzai has emerged as the front-runner to the first election to take place amid an American withdrawal of forces, prompting concerns that his victory could further fracture an already suspect political process. Polls show that Adbullah Abdullah, who lost to Karzai in a 2009 election tarnished by voter fraud, leads the field of 10 candidates in April's election. Abdullah pulled out of the 2009 election before the final tally, accusing Karzai supporters of stuffing ballot boxes and intimidating voters. International electoral observers agreed that the election was "flawed" but said the irregularities were not major and did not affect the outcome. Were Adbullah to win and succeed Karzai — who is barred from running for a third term — his victory could "open the door to all kinds of mischief" by way of possible legal actions against the president once he's out of office, Brookings Institute Afghanistan expert Michael O'Hanlon said. Abdullah and other Karzai opponents accuse the president of widespread corruption both during the last election and throughout his long tenure as Afghanistan's first-elected leader following the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. If Karzai fears for his freedom after the election, he might be less apt to hand over control of the country, O'Hanlon said. "If he thinks Abdullah is in the witch-hunt business, then the chances for a successful election goes way down." If no candidate wins 50% of the vote in April, the top two vote-getters will face off in a second round. Meanwhile, there are questions about whether the remaining candidates would be good for the interests of the United States. President George W. Bush launched the Afghanistan War in 2001 after the ruling Taliban in Kabul refused to turn over al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks that killed 3,000 Americans. Joined by a coalition of dozens of nations, the U.S.-led invasion dislodged the Taliban from power and over the ensuing 11 years has pushed its fighters from most population centers. Bush and President Obama have both said that the aim of the war is an Afghanistan that does not threaten the United States or the region. Whether that aim can be secured once U.S. forces depart the country in 2014 is a question that remains given that a new crop of leaders is vying for the presidency and some may not be on board with the Americans.Among the candidates is former mujahedin commander Abdul Rassoul Sayyaf, who in announcing his candidacy last month said he was entering the race to "serve my countrymen and my nation." Sayyaf is the namesake of the Philippine's Islamist insurgent group, Abu Sayaaf, which has committed acts of terror against Christians to create a Muslim nation in the southern Philippines. Sayyaf was a "mentor" to captured al-Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, according to the U.S. commission that looked into the origins of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Sayyaf ran paramilitary training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 1980s and 1990s, and helped bin Laden return to Afghanistan after he was ejected from Sudan. Peter Bergen, an Afghanistan expert with the New America Foundation and author of several books on al-Qaeda, said he believes Sayyaf is a "legitimate Afghan politician." On the question of Sayyaf's ties to al-Qaeda, Bergen said Sayyaf has been quoted as making anti-Taliban remarks to the Afghan media. Kate Clark, an analyst with the Kabul-based Afghanistan Analyst Network, said Sayyaf has won the trust of some in Washington. Clark said Sayyaf assisted U.S. efforts to re-engage the Karzai administration in talks of a bilateral security agreement that would allow several thousand U.S. forces to remain in the country after the drawdown of combat troops at the end of 2014. "I'm quite surprised by some of the diplomats and some of the military people that have spoken well of Sayyaf despite the allegations about his past," Clark said. But Brookings said that in the eyes of some in Washington "whatever happened in the past is sort of history." "I don't want to condone anything he might have done for bin Laden in the '90s," O'Hanlon said. "But I would be much more interested in recent behavior." Also running for the presidency is the president's older brother, Qayyum Karzai. Though Karzai hasn't endorsed his brother or any candidate yet, the perception of nepotism would throw the election into question among Afghans and the international community. "For a young democracy, there is a worry that you create more entrenched patronage" in the event Qayyum wins the presidency, O'Hanlon said. "Whether it amounts to a dynasty is not the main concern," he said. "The question is: If he wins, did he win fair and square?" The Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Committee, a non-partisan Afghanistan political watchdog group, says Afghans are concerned the upcoming presidential election is vulnerable to corruption and fraud. Accusations of corruption and presidential meddling in the election were raised last month by 16 presidential hopefuls who were removed from the ballot for various reasons cited by Afghanistan's Independent Election Committee, whose members are appointed by the Karzai administration. The committee claimed some of those barred from running lacked the required 100,000 voter cards from would-be supporters and backers from every province in the country. Others were barred for having dual citizenship, a violation of Afghan electoral law. But Clark says those thrown off the ballot appeared guilty only of being out of line with Karzai's policies. "The 2014 election has started with a lack of transparency, accusations of serious fraud and a further limitation of choice," she said. "It is not a promising beginning to the campaign to chose Afghanistan's next president."