The just concluded presidential and provincial elections in Afghanistan are not likely to bring solace to a nation that has been in the throes of war and maladministration for three decades. A playground and graveyard of empires that has been laid to waste through foreign interventions, Afghanistan is unlikely to see stability or peace irrespective of which candidate is declared the winner of the race to the highest office.

Although 40-50% of the electorate defied death and finger-chopping threats from the Taliban to exercise their franchise last week, one glaring anomaly was the continued presence of 1,01,000 International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops, 62,000 of whom are American. The expectation that the Afghan National Army and Police would take over responsibility for securing the populace has fallen flat due to ethnic manipulation of national institutions during the first term of President Hamid Karzai.

The predominance of Tajik elites from the Panjshir Valley in local security and police forces has been a major hurdle to improving the quality and quantity of recruitment. While Karzai himself is from the Pashtun community (the majority ethnic group of Afghanistan), the Panjshiri Tajiks who used to be the nucleus of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance have entrenched themselves like barnacles in all the key military and intelligence posts.

The discriminatory mafia-like character of the top echelons of the state security apparatus is a natural barrier for Pashtuns to consider enlisting and a propaganda tool for the Taliban to harness an endless supply of Pashtun fighters from the south and east of the country, as well as their ethnic kinfolk from across the border in Pakistan. Thus, despite over $16.5 billion spent by the US on making Afghanistan self-reliant in security, foreign forces still lead the effort to stall the marauding Taliban.

Can a country have democratic elections when it is under international occupation? The main contestants to the presidency this year stressed the ?sovereignty? of Afghanistan by repeatedly condemning the rising rates of civilian casualties from aerial bombardment of suspected Taliban/Al Qaeda targets by ISAF.

But so fragile is the capacity of the state that none of these politicians, including Karzai and his chief rival Abdullah Abdullah, can openly call for a total withdrawal of NATO and US troops. Unlike Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is playing a daring ?restore our sovereignty? game by insisting on early removal of all American forces from his soil, Karzai and his challengers in Afghanistan know the limits of their bloviations.

The American shadow looms large over the post-election dispensation in Kabul once the official results are announced in September. Since 2007, Washington?s relations with Karzai have nosedived over disputes about his kleptocratic and nepotistic style of rule, which benefits warlords and drug kingpins with brutal reputations, the delivery of foreign aid, and appointments to key policymaking positions. According to a May 2009 report in the Washington Post, a White House review of Afghanistan strategy noted: ?Karzai is not our man in this upcoming election.?

But unhappily for the Americans, the India-educated Karzai is a master manipulator of identities, loyalties and resources. He is widely tipped to win the re-election bid either in the first round itself or in a subsequent run-off in October.

At the hustings this year, he pulled out all stops by courting estranged warlords with serious blood on their hands like the Uzbek strongman Rashid Dostum and the dictatorial Tajik warlord from Herat, Ismail Khan.

In order to please the Panjshiri warriors, Karzai chose as his running mate for vice president, Mohammed Fahim, another heavyweight who has been decorated with the military rank of ?Marshall?. For the fundamentalists, Karzai has dangled misogynist visions of Sharia being smuggled into personal laws.

All these deals, though detrimental to state building and institutional fairness, have practically guaranteed Karzai another five years at the helm of a failing state whose assets are being rapaciously stripped. The warlords deliver votes for Karzai using the age-old fraudulent techniques of machine politics and then have the freedom to go berserk in their respective fiefdoms by crushing people?s freedoms and profiting from opium poppies. This cynical arrangement works fine with Karzai as long as he gets to keep his chair.

The Obama administration is clearly exasperated but out of options to prevent Karzai from winning. At the closure of polling on Thursday, US Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke could see the writing on the wall and hence went on an offensive by warning that the will of the electorate could be ?thwarted? in the counting of ballots. Rumours are being aired that the Americans are going to use the leverage of Karzai?s obviously unfree and unfair re-election to force him into accepting the pro-neoliberal candidate, Ashraf Ghani, as a ?Chief Executive? to work under him and reform dilapidated state institutions.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the imperious former US ambassador to Afghanistan, has admitted that ?because they (Washington) couldn?t construct a plan to replace Karzai, I think they (recently) toned down the criticism and kept the option open of working with Karzai, should he get re-elected.? So, all signs point to plus ?a change, plus c’est la m?me chose.

Barring miracles, Karzai will be back in the saddle. The Taliban will rejoice and redouble their mayhem against his banana republic until they secure their pound of flesh in a settlement on their terms. Washington will temporarily inject more troops without reining in Pakistan, which can keep exporting high quality holy warriors to stir the pot. More suicide and unmanned drone bombings, urban terrorism and chaos await the Afghan people.

Kai Eide, the UN Special Representative, described the Afghan polls as ?the most complicated elections I have seen anywhere in the world.? Their consequences will be messier than anywhere else.

?The author is associate professor of world politics at the Jindal Global Law School