Today’s elections in Afghanistan is proof that democracy struggles to exist and assert its presence in a country that is otherwise overrun by a motley of warlords and tribal warriors, and ‘where clan, tribe, hierarchy and tradition trump all.’

There have been descriptions of this kind of Afghan democracy as crude democracy, infant democracy, unsophisticated democracy, fake democracy, etc. Whatever style of democracy it is, it’s certainly not the foreign concept of Western-style democracy which has not really permeated the Afghan psyche.

The Taliban want Hamid Karzai out. Understandably so. By all indication, he is a US puppet. The Taliban vow to wreak havoc on the 17 million eligible voters who may cast their votes today for a president and provincial councils. The threat is not too difficult to grasp since they root for pro-West incumbent Karzai’s defeat. Karzai is deemed to be enjoying much material resource backing from the US, as well as from Afghanistan’s biggest and most brutal warlord.

Karzai is desperate to stay in power. He has enlisted the support of General Rashid Dostum, a politically treacherous ex-warlord. Many, including the US, fear that Dostum’s covert but active hand in Afghan politics will bring about ‘yet another vicious cycle of bloodshed and lawlessness. Forced to flee Afghanistan last year after claims that he brutalized a political rival, General Dostum is – to the horror of Western diplomats – now emerging as a key player who could be instrumental in delivering an election victory for Karzai.’

According to Political Islam-Wfol.tv:

Best known for allegedly overseeing a massacre of 2,000 Taliban prisoners following the US-led invasion in 2001, General Dostum controlled large swaths of northern Afghanistan for years. He remains the de facto leader of the country’s ethnic Uzbeks and his return is likely to consolidate their vote behind Mr Karzai. But the warlord’s triumphant return from Turkey on Sunday has exposed Mr Karzai to renewed accusations that even if he wins the election he will remain in hock to thugs and human rights abusers.

President Karzai, who has made a series of backroom deals with unsavoury mujahedin leaders to secure the votes they control, gave General Dostum carte blanche to return last week, in exchange for his support. General Dostum is said to have once strapped a soldier accused of theft to the tracks of a tank and driven him around until the man’s body was reduced to shreds.

The Taliban want Karzai to be defeated, preferably by his main challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, who hails from the north. The reason behind this still points to regional political factionalism – largely of tribe mentality. If someone from the north wins and eventually rules the country, the Taliban believe this would ignite fervor in the Pashtun-dominated south, ‘making ordinary folk more receptive to the Taliban.’

But it probably does not matter too much to the US whether or not Karzai is re-elected. The US Af-Pak strategy is only about installing a pro-US civilian government as was the case in equally Taliban-addled Pakistan.

Islamism is trying to remake Central Asia. On the other hand, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization wants to expand. Afghanistan happens to be the current theater offering the spectacle of this clash of interests.

They can do the warlord dance in Kabul. They can pass around oodles of drug money around. They can go ahead and fund private militias. They can burn down all poppy fields and opium factories. Pakistani intelligence can even withdraw its cash support to the Pashtun Taliban. All these, however, do not matter to the US. What the US is really worried about is the Taliban support from certain Persian Gulf potentates.

Never mind the results of today’s elections, the real competition in Afghanistan is between US and Taliban, or more specifically, Western-style democracy versus Islamism – the new world disorder.