Gary Thomas

Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission says it has canceled the presidential runoff, originally scheduled for this Saturday. The announcement came a day after President Hamid Karzai's challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, withdrew from the race. President Karzai's challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah said he could not accept a runoff overseen by the same people who were in charge of the August 20th poll.

In that round of voting, international officials uncovered massive fraud, mainly in President Karzai's favor. As a result, Mr. Karzai's victory fell below 50 percent, requiring a runoff.

In an exclusive with VOA Bangla Service Gary Thomas , the News Analyst from Voice of America says that President Hamid Karzai needs to earn trust of his own people through his work because his government’s name has been marred by corruption and inefficiencies during his previous term .

 Gary Thomas says , “ The only way he can so that now is by performance, he has got to prove to the Afghan people and to the international community that he is going to wipe out corruption , clean up the government” and get the Afghan Security forces trained to the point that they can provide security for their people.

But Gary Thomas adds that these are going to be very difficult task for Karzai . Although he has vowed to remove corruption , he has not spelt out the way corruption would be removed.