“I call on our people to use this chance to bring our country forward. I call on all of you to take part in this run-off,” Karzai finally announced after refusing for weeks to allow a second round to go ahead and denying that there had been electoral fraud.

The run-off will take place on Nov. 7. Karzai’s closest challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, who has indicated he would be willing to share power with the current president, said he thought it was a good move: “It will help democracy in this country. It will strengthen the faith of the people in the democratic process.“

Some Afghans agree with the former foreign minister and Karzai. One student at the University of Kabul for example said it was important to vote in the second round and that “of course” he would go.

But he is an exception. Many voters are disappointed by what happened in the first round and that there was “a lot of cheating and fraud.”

“No true democracy in Afghanistan”

Another student said she would not vote a second time because there was “no true democracy in Afghanistan.”

Abdullah Abdullah said he was aware it would not be easy to convince voters to come out a second time: “When the people of Afghanistan participate in the elections in hopefully bigger numbers they are taking a risk in some parts of the country. They should be confident that the risk is worth taking once again.”

“The people of Afghanistan were threatened -- they lost their fingers in the last elections. This is a serious issue and in order to prepare ground for transparency and fairness of the elections we have certain recommendations and suggestions, as well as conditions."

Not enough time

But the Afghan MP Daoud Sultanzoy said there simply was not enough time to ensure that the conditions were right for a free and fair second round of elections: “If we want to create prerequisites, a foundation for a clean election, we need to fix some of the mechanisms that created this fraud and some of the people behind it have to be removed and that will take time."

However, there is no time because Afghanistan’s harsh winter is approaching. If the run-off is delayed any more, many polling stations will become simply inaccessible.

The threat of insurgency also remains very real even if the United Nations has said it will work closely with the NATO-run International Security Assistance Force and Afghan forces to ensure that Afghans can vote without fear of intimidation.

Observers fear that there will be a weak turnout and this will only serve to exacerbate the political crisis in Afghanistan.

Author: Sabina Matthay/Anne Thomas
Editor: Thomas Bärthlein