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Summary

The Afghan government's limited writ and widespread official corruption are helping sustain a Taliban insurgency, and have fed international pessimism about efforts to stabilize Afghanistan. At the same time, President Hamid Karzai has, through compromise with faction leaders, been able to confine ethnic disputes to political competition, enabling his government to focus on trying to win over those members of the ethnic Pashtun community that support Taliban and other insurgents. Despite the measurable loss of confidence in Karzai, many Afghans consider their country's difficulties as beyond his control, and he still went into the August 20, 2009, election as the favorite. Turnout was lower than expected, and final but uncertified results, released September 16, 2009, showed him at 54.6%. Amid widespread charges of fraud, many substantiated by a U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission, which investigated the charges, nearly one-third of Karzai's votes were invalidated and the certified result, released October 21, 2009, placed Karzai just short of the 50%+ total needed to avoid a second-round runoff. The runoff was scheduled for November 7, 2009, but, asserting that fraud was likely in the runoff, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, Karzai's main challenger, dropped out of the race on November 1, 2009, and Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission declared Karzai the winner on November 2. The election issue has been a factor in a September-November 2009 Administration review of strategy, based on an assessment of the security situation furnished by the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. His report warned of potential mission failure unless a fully resourced classic counterinsurgency strategy is employed, and U.S. officials are concerned that any U.S. strategy requires a legitimate Afghan partner for implementation. Appearing to welcome a resolution of the issue, the United States congratulated Karzai and praised Abdullah for diplomatic restraint and called on him to remain engaged in politics. Still, stabilizing Afghanistan requires winning Pashtun support for the Afghan government, and that could be predicated, at least in part, on the success of efforts to build effective local governing structures. New provincial councils in each of the 34 provinces were elected on August 20 as well, although their roles in local governance and their relationships to appointed governors remain unclear and inconsistent across Afghanistan. The trend toward promoting local governing bodies will be accelerated, according to the Obama Administration strategy announced on March 27, 2009. The core of the strategy announced at that time is a so-called "civilian uplift" that is in the process of doubling, to about 1,000 by the end of 2009, the number of U.S. civilian personnel helping build Afghan governing and security institutions and the economy. Under an FY2009 supplemental appropriation (P.L. 111-32), the Administration developed, by September 23, 2009, "metrics" by which to judge progress in Afghanistan, including the performance and legitimacy of the Afghan government and its efforts to curb official corruption. Small amounts of U.S. funds are tied to Afghanistan's performance on such metrics. For further information, see CRS Report RL30588, Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy, by Kenneth Katzman.

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