Afghanistan is going to experience another turning point in its chequered history within next few years. International community has officially announced to complete the drawdown from Afghanistan in 2014. In the meanwhile, 2014 is going to be an election cycle. Given the fact that Afghanistan continues to be destabilized by a violent insurgency, it will be difficult for it to manage both events- the end of drawdown of international forces from the country and holding of the election- simultaneously. President Hamid Karzai has begun to turn either of the two events to his own favor.

On Thursday, April 12, 2012, he said that it is still a question whether Afghanistan can go through both at a time. One thing is clear that given the ongoing violent situation in Afghanistan, it cannot manage the transition and the presidential election simultaneously. But it is also difficult to move the presidential election to 2013 as it will be against what the constitution has provided for. Considering the fact that there is still violence in different parts of Afghanistan, speeding up the transition will also be dangerous for the future course of peace in the country.

One option is to reschedule the completion of drawdown by postponing it to 2015, a year after the presidential system is held as it will mark a watershed because there will be the first power transfer from president Karzai to a prospective winner of the election. Definitely, based on the constitution President Karzai cannot run for a third time, so the power will have to be transferred to a different winning candidate.

It should also be mentioned that the conduct of election will be meaningful only if a comprehensive electoral reform is launched to make sure that the future elections will be free and fair. This can be achieved only by making the processes transparent.

In the meanwhile, there has to be a thorough review of the electoral law with the aim to provide more opportunity for political parties to assume the role of serving as a channel for organized political participation for the citizens, and address the ambiguities and gaps in the law so as to avoid the controversies of the last elections that emanated from these gaps and lack of clarities. International community can push Afghan government to accept an initiative for a comprehensive electoral processes reform by conditioning their funding on it.