Afghanistan still needs strong international support.

In Afghanistan's first democratic elections, Hamid Karzai won a resounding victory. Karzai had been heading the country's interim administration and now has a mandate to rule as president.

Karzai won an impressive 55 percent of ballots cast in the first round of voting, securing the simple majority required to avoid a run-off. This means a lot for the war-fractured nation's political future.

Afghanistan is a complicated mosaic of races and ethnic groups. The majority Pashtuns account for over 40 percent of the population, while the second largest group, Tajiks, constitute 20-plus percent. Both the Uzbeks and Hazaras, who are physically Mongoloid, constitute nearly 10 percent each. Minority groups make up the rest of the population.

With 18 candidates vying for the presidency, many people assumed a run-off would be inevitable as Karzai's rivals were expected to garner many votes from their respective ethnic groups.

But Karzai crushed his contenders with an unexpectedly strong showing. Afghan voters' strong yearning for rapid progress in the reconstruction of their nation under the current government and framework of peace apparently won over deep-rooted ethnic rivalries.

After being officially declared winner of the election on Nov. 3, Karzai pledged to step up his efforts to disband military cliques and crack down on narcotics production. He is obviously moving quickly to capitalize on his bolstered power base to forge ahead with his policies.

The challenge confronting him, however, is daunting. An estimated 100,000 militiamen are operating around the landlocked country under the command of regional warlords. They are armed with a panoply of heavy weapons-even tanks-as well as machineguns and artillery. In a society where guns are a fact of life, disarming militias is a Herculean task. But security and stability won't come to the impoverished country unless these warlords are made to surrender their power and arms.

Tokyo is working with the Afghan government to help dismantle these private armies. The joint effort has led to the disarmament of about 20,000 militiamen. But all the major military cliques remain untouched.

Another urgent task is to beef up the army, which at present has only 12,000 troops. Remnants of the Taliban are still active in areas along the border with Pakistan, and U.S. forces are trying to mop them up. Even in Kabul, the nation's capital, law and order is maintained by foreign troops, mainly European forces. It is important to ensure that the Afghan government can improve its ability to maintain public security, if only gradually.

The bulk of rebuilding work lies in rural villages, where 80 percent of the population resides. Much depends on whether the government can quickly destroy the thriving opium industry, which makes Afghanistan the world's main supplier of this addictive drug.

Many warlords finance their operations with money earned from drug trafficking. The government can starve them of funds by forcing farmers to stop cultivating poppies by switching to other crops. This is no easy task, though. However, the government has no choice but to tackle the problem head-on. And international support for the nation's fragile farming sector is essential for the success of the effort.

After years of exhausting civil war, Afghanistan once degenerated into a hub of international terrorism, earning a reputation as a typical ``failed nation.'' But the country has begun treading the path toward democracy, albeit slowly.

Independence and stability are, of course, still a long way off. But the society is regaining its vigor, with relatively safe areas attracting foreign tourists.

When one looks at the mess in Iraq, the second battlefield in the U.S.-led war against terrorism, one cannot help realizing the enormous gravity of solid international support to the rehabilitation of Afghanistan.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 8(IHT/Asahi: November 9,2004)