For the last three or four days, I have been asked a question nearly a hundred times: ‘what are the election results?’ From my neighbors next door to the taxi drivers, colleagues and local and foreign journalists, everyone is impatient to know the outcome of the much-discussed, controversial Afghan elections that were held on August 20, but two months passed and no one has a clue about the real situation. One day it seems that a runoff will be the result but the next day there is a strong possibility that President Hamid Karzai is going to be declared as the winner. On the third day it appears there is a possibility for ‘negotiations’ and a ‘coalition government.’

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The contentious process has left many Afghans disillusioned and angry.

“People are disappointed, really disappointed,” said Afghan political analyst Abdulhadi Hairan. “It will be hard for them to trust the next government.”

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The U.N. and the U.S. wasted no time in declaring the election a success. True that the violence during the election process was not of much significance, in terms of its inability to hinder the process completely, but the fear that the Taliban were able to instill into the hearts of the voters before election day resulted in a low turnout across the country; even lower than expected in southern and southeastern provinces where the insurgents have control over several districts. They had threatened to cut off fingers found with the voting ink on.

According to latest reports, the vote count has been completed, the official results are yet not out, but both President Hamid Karzai and his rival Dr. Abdullah Abdullah claimed victory over one another last night. Other candidates blamed officials for rigging on a massive scale. Of course, irregularities, flaws in the process and other problems were reported from all over the country.

The country as well as the world is now impatiently waiting for the results to know who the winner was. Unofficial results and surveys show Mr. Karzai and Abdullah neck-and-neck in some provinces and Mr. Karzai much ahead in others. Two strong possibilities emerge as a result: a runoff if none of the candidates had the required votes; and a tension if one candidate got the majority votes and the other refused to accept his victory; this is the case most likely if President Karzai was declared a winner.

This is a very complicated situation now. By now it is clear that the winner is either Karzai or Abdullah. If the official announcement of the results provokes the failed one of them and it incites violence or stirs up tension which will eventually end up as a conflict between the Pashtoons and the Tajiks, or between the South and the North, it will divide the country and will harm the efforts against terrorism immensely, not only in Afghanistan, but in the whole region.

In the north, the notorious warlord, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, has backed President Karzai in the election, while a powerful Governor of the Balkh province, Ustad Atta Mohammad Noor, campaigned for Dr. Abdullah. A tension on the election results may provoke Gen. Dostum and his Uzbek militia to act violently. He is already unhappy with the U.S. embassy statements about his return from Turkey. But in general view, his return contributed to the perception that the election was contested on the ground of warlordism, not democratic manners. This increased some people’s contempt towards the election process in Afghanistan.

With these uncertainties prevailing in the election aftermath, the international community, particularly the U.N. and the U.S., need to recognize the need of a broad based strategy that is acceptable to both sides and, more importantly, workable and effective in situations of this nature. This step is particularly important because if a conflict arises from this tension, it will have very unsuccessful and disastrous results for a ‘successful’ election.