After months of bitter squabbling over an election plagued by fraud allegations Afghanistan has finally got a new power-sharing government , brokered by US pressure.
Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai will become the new president, while his rival Abdullah Abdullah is named to the newly-created position of chief executive officer.
The deal is merely a political arrangement. The election commission has not announced any winner of the election, keeping the results of an audit secret.
It will be a big challenge to sustain such a forced and unorthodox political deal.
The creation of a chief executive officer means there are likely to be multiple power centres. This could affect the smooth running of the government.
But if the two rival leaders could work together to set up a coherent administration, it could signal a new start for Afghanistan.
The deal is “a new experience for Afghanistan”, which will be difficult sustain, according to political analyst Wazhma Frogh. But she is hopeful that this will sort of decentralise power and make more focus at the provincial level.
Frogh said there was no other option but to make a political deal, pointing to the ethnic and political divisions in the country.
There is an ethnic undertone in the struggle for power between the two candidates. Ghani is a Pashtun, the largest ethnic group in the country, mainly based in the south and the east. They were also the traditional rulers in the past, for the most part.
Abdullah’s mother was Tajik, but he had a Pashtun father and he draws the bulk of his support from the ethnically diverse north.
“So if one group is in power and the other one is not, then that is a problem. Now the most important question is the survival of that deal,” Frogh said.
“You need to have a national unity government but it is more important that you agree on a framework that will be held strong and that will be secure.”
The deal is also subject to interpretation on many fronts.
Apart from the government formation, there are several challenges that Ghani’s government will face as soon as he comes to power.
One of the most immediate is a financial crisis, in a country where much of the budget is funded by the West.
The government is running perilously low on cash. Finance ministry officials have said that revenue is down by 30% year-on-year.
Security continues to be a delicate issue. The insurgents have begun launching large-scale attacks with hundreds of fighters.
But Ghani has said he will initiate talks with the Taliban, but the rebel forces seem less interested. Yesterday, they denounced the president-elect and vowed to continue the insurgency.
