PROFILE: Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's tainted president

Kabul (Earth Times - dpa) - Hamid Karzai, who was sworn in for a second term in office on Thursday, still has the chance to go down as a great Afghan leader. However, as things stand now, Karzai's legacy will most likely be defined by August's fraud-marred elections, his unwillingness to address the widespread fraud and his failure to clean up his corruption-riddled cabinet.

International election monitors said that up to one quarter of the votes cast in the August 20 elections had been manipulated, the vast majority in Karzai's favor. A UN-backed investigation discounted about 1 million ballots, or one-third of Karzai's votes, forcing him into a runoff.

Much to the dismay and frustration of his Western backers, Karzai initially refused to acknowledge that any vote rigging had taken place.

After Karzai refused to replace officials of the Independent Election Commission, who were widely regarded to be heavily biased towards the incumbent, his main challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, dropped out of the scheduled runoff, leading to Karzai to be declared the winner.

Back in December 2001, following the ouster of the Taliban regime, Karzai was regarded a beacon of hope.

The Pashtun politician had just been chosen - in absentia - to serve as Afghanistan's interim president at an international conference held in Germany.

At that time, Karzai was in southern Afghanistan, negotiating with the Taliban, who had ruled the country since 1996, to relinquish their last stronghold in Kandahar.

In 2004, in the first free presidential poll in the country, he was confirmed in office by a landslide.

Despite several assassination attempts, and also growing discontent with his government among the Afghan people, who were faced with the resurgence of the Taliban and endemic government corruption, Karzai ran for another term.

His victory seemed assured largely because Karzai could firmly count on many votes from the Pashtun, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, but Abdullah put in a stronger showing than many expected.

Karzai has not laid out any grand vision on how to solve Afghanistan's most pressing problems. During his inauguration ceremony, he vowed again to fight corruption, but did not single out any clear means. Instead Karzai lashed out at international media for exaggerating the problem of graft in his government.

"Since some time, the world media has widely reported on corruption in our country's offices and administration. Whatever the truth may be, these allegations have given the Afghan administration a very bad reputation," he said.

"Corruption and bribery constitute a very dangerous problem. We want to follow this issue seriously. We consider combating this difficulty our duty," he said.

He also said that he wanted to call a grand tribal assembly, or loya jirga, to find a way to reconcile with the resurgent Taliban. "We welcome all those countrymen, who are not linked to international terrorist networks, and who want to have a peaceful life in the light of our constitution."

Karzai has grown increasingly critical of western forces in the country, yet without the foreign soldiers protecting his unstable government, he would have lost power a long time ago. Despite the troops, his influence is limited, in particular in the insurgency-ridden provinces in the south and east.

The 53-year-old president mostly stays put in the presidential palace in Kabul, and is largely isolated from the Afghan people.

The international community is growing increasingly critical of Karzai, who was once viewed as Afghanistan's hope.

His detractors regard him as a puppet of the US government, but relations with Washington have cooled considerably since US president George W Bush left office.

A recent US government white paper on US policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan summed up the crux of the issue: "The overall legitimacy of the Afghan government is also undermined by rampant corruption and a failure to provide basic services to much of the population over the past seven years."

When congratulating him after he was declared election winner, US President Barack Obama urged Karzai to get serious about improving the government and fighting corruption.

Yet for a long time, Karzai was regarded as the West's best hope. Although Western-oriented, he is also steeped in the traditions of his country and is able to converse easily in English as well as his native Pashtun and Dari, the country's second official language.

However, Karzai has far from fulfilled the expectations of him. Both in Afghanistan and the West, people increasingly wonder whether this president is not the hoped-for solution for Afghanistan but rather part of the problem.