Sir: The election crisis in Afghanistan has reached a level where nobody knows if and when a new Afghan government will be installed. Though the Election Commission has declared Mr Ashraf Ali Ghani victorious based on a preliminary result, this is by far not the end of the story. The other candidate, Abdullah Abdullah, is not going to accept the result, and is demanding a recount of votes. The US and EU have also joined in with the demand for a thorough recount otherwise the financial support for Afghanistan might be affected. This is not a surprise for those who know Afghanistan and say democracy doesn’t work in a tribal society. It is an open secret Mr Karzai was never elected in the manner that would be accepted as democratic. He was launched at the Bonn Conference and pushed into power with the help of western forces who thought they had a pliant pro-west puppet. His re-election was a scandal tinged with so much rigging that some of the more sensitive NATO members tried to find another candidate. But that wasn’t taken kindly by Mr Karzai who did not sugarcoat his opinions about what he thought of the US and NATO. ALI ASHRAF KHAN Karachi