France 24 is reporting that the oppositional Afghan Presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah has decided to drop out off the runoff election.

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I have had consistent doubts on whether the Afghan Presidential election is going to win any substantial political support by the majority of the Afghan people, because there have been various reports of corruption from the ruling elite of the country.

I have also never been a fan of both Presidential candidates due to their possible engagement with government corruption. But Abdullah’s dropping out from the Presidential election will probably increase the feeling of illegitimacy of the electoral process, because that virtually secures Hamid Karzai’s victory (unless the Afghanistan’s Constitutional Court says otherwise) without any additional electoral possibilities.

Regardless of the future development of the election, there is no question that many people in Afghanistan feel more distant with the government. Sure, this is just merely a conjecture without any hands on evidence, but would you feel satisfied if a potentially corrupted leader gets reelected through a possible fraudulent election?

If the international coalition wants to get rid of the Taliban, then they need to do something about this corrupted election. We just cannot have good faith that somehow the political relationship between the Afghan government and its people are going to be warmer without any international engagement.