As India began its weeks-long election process, voters in another country to its northwest lined up to cast their votes. For Afghanistan, free and fair elections are relatively novel. Indeed, the last presidential election - in 2009 - saw the main challenger to the incumbent president, Hamid Karzai, withdraw claiming widespread electoral fraud. Yet this election is, if anything, even more important than the one in 2009. It is held under the shadow of the United States' withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Taliban, in the south of the country, can barely contain their anticipation; once the US withdraws, as they and their backers in the Pakistan establishment believe, the regime in Kabul will fall into their hands like a ripe fruit. Meanwhile, few expect Mr Karzai, whose presidency was marked by hectic deal-making that led to accusations of corruption but kept the regime relatively stable, to be the first leader in Afghan history to completely relinquish power. Even if he does, the power vacuum created by his exit along with the US will be filled by the Taliban - unless the election throws up a clear winner who can, to some extent, unite the country.
The fact that the likely winner is the man who came runner-up to Mr Karzai last time before withdrawing, a medical doctor named Abdullah Abdullah, is both good and bad news. It is good news because Mr Abdullah draws his political power from his closeness to Ahmed Shah Massoud, the 1990s resistance leader known as "the Lion of the Panjshir", who was murdered by Al Qaeda just days before 9/11. Massoud and the Northern Alliance that he led were always known to have friendly relations with New Delhi. The bad news, however, is that Mr Abdullah is likely to be a red rag to the Taliban. Worse, he is not uncomplicatedly Pashtun; he is thought of as Tajik more than anything else. Ethnicity is a knotty question in Afghanistan, a volatile mix of Tajiks, Pashtuns, Hazaras and Uzbeks. Of these, the largest group is Pashtuns, who the British once called - and many Indians still call - Pathans. That ethnicity, which spreads across southern and eastern Afghanistan and across a porous and disputed border into Pakistan's tribal areas, is the largest of Afghanistan's peoples; Mr Abdullah's main rivals are Pashtuns. The Taliban is not just an expression of Islamic fundamentalism but also of Pashtun power. To effectively undercut its claims, a Pashtun as president seems to be a requirement.
In any case, the question of Mr Karzai's successor is unlikely to be decided in the first round. Following the French model, the two candidates with the most votes are pitted against each other in a run-off election. Mr Abdullah might be one. Another possibility is Ashraf Ghani, a former World Bank official who came in fourth in 2009. And then there's Mr Karzai's preferred candidate, Zalmai Rassoul, who resigned as foreign minister in order to run for president. One of these men has a daunting task ahead of him. For Afghanistan and for India, the stakes are high.
