  THE MAKING OF AFGHANISTAN: KARZAI’S SECOND PRESIDENTIAL TERM AND OBAMA’S NEW AFGHANISTAN STRATEGY Salih DOAN Afghanistan held a presidential election on August 20 th . This was the second “democratic election” for the Afghani people to elect their president since 2001. It was up to the Afghani people whether to elect current President Hamid Karzai for a second term or to make a new beginning with a new president. It was crucially important for Afghanistan to have a free and fair election, which was hoped to lead to stability and security in Afghanistan, and even in Central Asia and the entire region. However, it could not be achieved. 1 On October 20, two-months after the presidential elections, the Independent Election Commission in Afghanistan declared that a run-off would take place in Afghanistan because none of the candidates were able to receive more than 50% of the votes. It didn’t work out and the run-off of the Afghanistan presidential election, which was supposed to be carried out on November 7th, was cancelled due to Dr. Abdullah’s statement of his withdrawal. As the main reason of his withdrawal from run-off, Dr. Abdullah declared that if the director of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) kept his position there would be no chance for a free and fair election. As a result of Dr. Abdullah’s withdrawal, former president Hamid Karzai has earned his second five-year presidential term in Afghanistan. On November 19, Hamid Karzai was sworn in for his second term as Afghan president with the participation of nearly 40 countries’ foreign 1 Let’s recall a few details about the August 20 elections and the following two months in Afghanistan: 165,400 returning officers served in more than 6,500 polling stations, 230 million dollars were spent during the election process, hundreds of donkeys were used to carry election materials to the election centers because of the technical impossibility to use different transportation vehicles, millions of Afghan people were exhausted enough during the election, the electorate took a dislike to the term democratic elections, and the Taliban gained strength throughout Afghanistan.