On Friday, April 20, 2012, Ahmad Zia Masoud, the head of National Front of Afghanistan (NFA)- representing more than fifty percent of Afghan population- apprised a gathering in Kabul of the possible political marriage between president Hamid Karzai and some figures on his team on one hand and the Taliban and Hezb-e-Islami Hekmatyar on the other. He said that president Karzai has lost his support base among Afghan people, and is now looking forward to this marriage to enable him to build a support base for himself.

There is no doubt that president Karzai's popularity has dwindled significantly and he is now terribly unpopular among Afghan people because of a number of reasons: 1) his erratic stance and behavior towards interferences by the neighboring countries, 2) inefficiency in his government to deliver services to the people, 3) rampant corruption in his administration, 4) his variably hostile position against international community that has generously helped the people for the last ten years, and more importantly 5) his persistence to call the Taliban militants that continue to kill Afghan people and security forces as his brothers.

Mr. Masoud also said that president Karzai's pro-Taliban inclination and policy is linked to the connection that people on his team had with the Taliban before 2001. The NFA appears to be girding itself for confronting this possibly unholy triangle alliance for the following reasons: 1) this will be aimed at creating a specific ethnic hegemony, 2) this will lead to efforts to excluding others from power structures except for some symbolic and impotent individuals that might be appointed, 3) the marriage could compromise on democratic achievements, including the civil rights enshrined in the constitution.

All these will be intolerable for the political coalitions such as NFA and National Coalition of Afghanistan (NCA) that fought the Taliban before 2001 and have supported the democratic political processes over the last ten years and have a vision of a democratic and plural stable and prosperous Afghanistan.

They will be more than eager if the Taliban and Hezb-e-Islami denounce violence and join the political process to compete for power peacefully within the framework of the constitution. But they will never tolerate if president Karzai uses state resources and international funding to bring the Taliban to power while they still use violence to terrify Afghan people.

International community is trying to restore a relative stability in Afghanistan in order to pave the way for their withdrawal. But as they work to find a solution to ongoing violent insurgency, they must also pay attention to these two divergent political trends in Afghanistan.

While they interact and deal with president Karzai as the representative of Afghanistan when it comes to the future of the country, they must not forget these political groups that represent more than fifty percent of the people and are unhappy with president Karzai's ineffective policies.

International community should no longer continue to wrestle with Mr. Karzai in the way he wants. It is high time for president Karzai to discontinue this wrestling he was doing to satisfy his own vested interests. It is time to think of the future of Afghanistan, which appears to be at stake.