Afghanistan's fourth elections in the presence of foreign forces could not radiate a refreshing effect due to allegations of fraud and a low voter turnout. Merely 3.6 million votes were cast against the country's 17.3 million registered voters. It was the lowest tally of the elections held since 2001. So, this indicates the incremental resurgence of the Taliban's political influence. Anyway, around 2,500 candidates, including 338 women, contested for 249 seats. This 10 to one ratio between candidates and seats, coupled with a low voter turn out meant that the winner represented only one to two percent of the voters of his constituency. The independent Free and Fair Elections Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA), the country's biggest election monitoring group, had deployed about 7,000 personnel to monitor the elections. The group has voiced "serious concerns" about the quality of the elections, as its observations indicate that the voting process was "marred by ballot-stuffing, proxy voting, underage voting, use of fake voter identification cards and repeated voting." According to the group, one of its major concerns were "more than 300 instances of intimidation and coercion of voters by local warlords and powerbrokers", some of which had close ties with the Karzai government. "We had more than 280 cases of direct attacks by the insurgents and we also had 157 cases of warlord interference in the process and the committed acts of violence," the group reported. The observers of the Afghan elections have urged President Hamid Karzai to allow an independent investigation into reports of "widespread electoral fraud, intimidation of voters and interference by powerful warlords." They are of the view that a cover up of pervasive fraud, like the one during the presidential elections, would further erode the standing of President Karzai, both at home and abroad, and also curtail its bargaining power with the Taliban. However, the state electoral commission has criticised the observer groups and the media for being "quick to imply [that] the electoral process was unsuccessful based on allegations of fraud and misconduct." The commission acknowledged that the "cases of fraud and misconduct are inevitable in the current security climate" and it "is fully committed to working with Electoral Complaints Commission to eliminate the effect from the final results as far as possible." This panel of five people is the final arbiter on fraud allegations, and it was the body that invalidated nearly one-third of Karzai's votes last year. Now, it is significantly weaker than it was during the presidential election, as it was dominated by UN appointees. Currently, the entire panel has been appointed by the government. Meanwhile, the Taliban can rightfully claim the low turnout as a political victory, since they had called for a boycott of the polls. Nevertheless, the western states and media are posed to proclaim success and embrace these elections, as they did in case of the fraudulent presidential polls. But the Afghans are dismayed at the behaviour of their political elite. This estrangement could very well be the underlying reason why majority of the Afghans chose to turn a cold shoulder towards the elections. However, acts of violence and intimidations were not strong enough to account for such a low turn out. These elections, nonetheless, could create as many problems as were envisaged to be solved. These loose cannon or responsible representatives could very well create serious problems for the Karzai administration. So far, the Afghan President has been able to keep the constitutionally strong Parliament in check by dealing with various key regional figures in an attempt to prevent a united opposition. However, the current parliamentary elections would restrict his powers. That could undermine his policymaking capacity. At the same time, major stakeholders in Afghanistan are aware that the competition amongst the category of politicians, who participated in the electoral process, is of trivial implication. It is the process of political reconciliation with the mainstream Taliban leaders that would determine the upcoming political landscape of Afghanistan. Thus, the pursuit of this objective is at a fairly advanced stage. Simultaneously, the Taliban's politico-military momentum is on the rise, which definitely supports their bargaining position. So, power sharing in Afghanistan is also hinged at the outcome of a settlement among the powers that be. The northern alliance has been fighting against the Taliban for decades. Due to this politico-military baggage, the alliance sternly opposes any viable power sharing arrangement with the Taliban. Therefore, any such settlement would be far less than a 'carte blanche' for the Taliban. Nevertheless, the Taliban are poised to emerge, as a dominant political authority in Afghanistan. Besides this, the Americans are trying to achieve a quick end to a costly war. The foreign troops presence has touched its peak, thus, according to Vice President Joe Biden "a rapid drawdown should commence next summer." COIN is not going well, so General David Petraeus is of the opinion that overcoming the Taliban resistance could take another nine or 10 years. Many in Washington also believe that the Taliban phenomenon is an indigenous political movement, which cannot be defeated militarily, at least in the next few years. Afghanistan's rugged topography and complex demography make it difficult for a central government to project power into many parts of the country. As such, an Afghan central government can only maintain viability through regional autonomy. So, the current system of government features a strong central government. It is hard to imagine that the Afghan central government would continue to exist in its current form after the withdrawal of foreign forces. The Afghan parliamentary elections are for a system of government that is being artificially maintained; its major tenets are likely to be bartered away during the process of negotiation with the Taliban. Whatever is the outcome of these elections, it is likely to be detrimental to the efforts aimed at achieving politically stable conditions, conducive to a military drawdown. Hence, the elections may amount to reverse paddling the effort for the future political arrangement. The writer is a retired air commodore of the Pakistan Air Force. Email: khalid3408@gmail.com