AFGHAN President Ashraf Ghani and political rival Abdullah Abdullah have signed a power-sharing agreement two months after both declared themselves the winner of last September’s presidential election. Ghani’s spokesman Sediq Sediqqi tweeted on Sunday that a political deal between Ghani and Abdullah had been signed in which Ghani would remain President of the war-torn nation while Abdullah will lead the National Reconciliation High Council and members of his team would be included in the cabinet.
The signing of the power-sharing accord has apparently removed one of the main hurdles in the way of resumption of intra-Afghan peace dialogue. The United States and Taliban inked a deal on February 29 this year under which intra-Afghan peace process was to begin from March but it could not due to refusal of President Ghani to release Taliban prisoners as envisaged in the deal and personal bickering between Ghani and Abdullah following declaration of results of the presidential election. The power sharing deal would hopefully help maintain the balance of power as was done in the previous stint of Ghani when Abdullah was made Chief Executive but it has yet to be seen whether or not the new arrangement would prove conducive for intra-Afghan dialogue as Abdullah, having controversial track record of a spoiler, would be heading the peace talks with Taliban. But in case an ultimate deal is clinched, it will have more credibility as Ghani and his political rival would be on board on the issue. Ghani takes credit for signing of the power sharing deal without international mediation but the real test would be successful and genuine national power sharing deal with or without outside mediation as only this would bring much-needed peace and stability to Afghanistan.
