Winning the trust of the people will be the number one challenge for Hamid Karzai's Afghan government, according to MEPs just back from Kabul.
Winning the trust of the people will be the number one challenge for Hamid Karzai's Afghan government, according to MEPs just back from Kabul. They were there as part of an international force to monitor the second round of elections, before the challenger Abdullah Abdullah, pulled out. Thijs Berman, the Dutch Socialist who headed the team said "the Afghan people have lost trust in their government".
In part due to international pressure the Afghan government was forced to hold a second round after Mr Karzai failed to win 50% of the votes and following damaging allegations and proof of fraud by the UN.
Trust "severely damaged"
Speaking to us Mr Berman said, "the biggest challenge of the new government will be recovering the trust of its own people, because this has been severely damaged through years of promises not being held and lately through the massive fraud in the first election round".
He added, the Afghan people "feel that the international community rules in the country and that their own government is corrupt. They don't feel respected".
"Only a credible Afghan government can create stability and take over the tasks now performed by the international community. The latter has been hypocrite, turning a blind eye to the corruption and the resurgence of the opium trade," he said.
"Corrupt governments feed violent resistance"
Explaining the brutal "realpolitik" behind this Berman says "this has been accepted in the light of the fight against terrorism. But terrorism cannot be fought by armies; it doesn't help to send more troops to Afghanistan. It can only be fought with credible government, with developments the population believes in. Corrupt governments feed violent resistance".
Mr Berman wants the European Parliament to develop closer links with its Afghan counterpart and use these links to ensure that any post election recommendations by the EU are properly implemented. Members plan to return to Kabul on April 2010 and the results of the election will be discussed in Brussels on 2 December.
Government should "reflect the political and regional diversity"
The need for the Afghan government to be one that has legitimacy also came from another quarter. The head of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, said Afghanistan needed a government that could "reflect the political and regional diversity of Afghanistan and consolidate internal reconciliation.”
He said EU efforts should be focused on the main challenges: "building viable and accountable institutions, democracy, the rule of law, the respect of human rights, good governance and development and on combating corruption and drugs".