KABUL An open secret among US officials in Kabul is that Afghanistan was the Bush administration's secondary war. After years of neglect, Taliban violence skyrocketed, prompting President Barack Obama to boost the American commitment - in guns and gold.

Now, both the winner of Thursday's presidential election and his international partners face a daunting game of catch-up if they are to turn the tide of the Taliban insurgency.

They will all confront the added challenge of growing war-weariness among Afghans, Americans and other nations that provide troops. Resources are tight among coalition members facing their own domestic economic problems.

The international community is desperate for an Afghan president seen as capable of tackling the problems of insurgency, narcotics and government corruption. Obama and other world leaders need such a colleague to give hope to their own constituents as casualty figures rise.

President Hamid Karzai leads in the polls. Most analysts believe he will win a second five-year term, barring a surge in support for his top competitor, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah. The two could also find themselves in an October run-off if Karzai doesn't get more than 50 per cent of the votes this week.The articulate, multilingual Karzai was once seen as a dynamic leader. Years of corruption, ineffectual government and rising violence have tarnished that image. To hold on to power, Karzai has again surrounded himself with tainted warlord power brokers, raising the question of whether Afghanistan was moving backward.

The Obama administration has declared itself neutral in the contest, representing a step away from the warm embrace that the Bush leadership once held for Karzai. US officials have made clear that although they would work with Karzai, they won't accept business as usual during a second term.

“If you get a new government in place that is more of the same, you fail to satisfy expectations of the people, and that would not advance the national process in the way that is so sorely needed,” said Timothy Michael Carney, a former US ambassador who heads the US electoral support team in Kabul.

For the Obama administration, the stakes are high. With troops moving out of Iraq, Afghanistan has become Obama's war, and his administration has spent political capital to increase troop levels and financial resources for the country at a time when many of the president's supporters want an end to the conflicts of his predecessor.

The US hopes the election will give Afghanistan's leader a broad mandate allowing the president to carry out reform and reach out to supposed moderates in the Taliban - if any are willing to break ranks with the hard-liners.

However, it is unlikely that significant elements in the Taliban would agree to talks without a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces. For now, however, the focus is not on withdrawal timetables but adding more troops.

US troop numbers have soared. Just three years ago, the US had only about 20,000 forces in the country. Today, it has more than triple that, on its way to 68,000 by year's end. US deaths in Afghanistan will set a record in 2009.

Gen Stanley McChrystal, the top US and NATO commander in the country, is carrying out a 60-day review of Afghanistan, and some of the members of his panel have recommended a substantial increase in American troops, even as the US reduces its numbers in Iraq.

Sen John McCain, the former presidential candidate, called on Tuesday for troop levels to be “significantly increased,” including an additional three Marine battalions in the most violent province, Helmand.

No matter the number of troops, reform after the election will still be slow.

If Karzai wins, his government could be beholden to power brokers with ties to organised crime, narcotics and in some cases even to the Taliban, said Anthony Cordesman, an analyst for the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

“There will be no meaningful government services in far too many areas. There will be no Afghan source of security. Instead, there will be a corrupt and ineffective police, no courts, and no jails,” he said. “The Taliban and other jihadist movements will still be able to exploit a near power vacuum in many rural parts of the country, and the central government's failures in a good part of the rest.”

Carney, the US election official, believes Thursday's vote will be a referendum on Karzai's stewardship, and a test of how far Afghanistan has “moved away from the old think of ethnic politics, or of deal making, smoke-filled room politics.”

But Karzai, in the run-up to the election, has engaged in crony politics, bringing back two notorious warlords, moves that drew the ire of the top UN official in the country and the US government.

On Karzai's ticket as vice president is Mohammad Qasim Fahim, a former Tajik warlord whom Human Rights Watch has accused of human rights abuses during the 1990s Afghan civil war. On Sunday, Gen Abdul Rashid Dostum arrived in Kabul - a powerful Uzbek warlord accused of involvement in the deaths of 2,000 Taliban fighters shortly after the 2001 US invasion. Both men, in theory, can bring Karzai votes.

Karzai's top challenger, Abdullah, is the one of the few national leaders not swept up in Karzai's electoral family gathering. And as the threat of Taliban violence hangs over the election, there are some indications Abdullah supporters could take to the streets if the election outcome is not to their liking.

The top UN official in the country, Kai Eide, said on Tuesday that elections are divisive by nature, but after the vote the various camps must come together to “address the most critical problems this country faces.”

Eide noted that international community has a long-term commitment to Afghanistan but would insist that Afghan leaders “take responsibility for their security and their development.”

Karzai says his top priority if re-elected will be peace through reconciliation, but the president has so far failed to attract militants to the negotiating table, and there is no indication that talks will start soon. Taliban leader Mullah Omar has demanded that US and NATO troops first leave the country.

The more realistic of Karzai's goals is to double the size of the Afghan army and police - something many US commanders believe needs to happen, but a move that will cost US taxpayers billions of dollars to train and equip troops.

That in turn could draw resources away from programmes to promote economic development and effective governance - often cited as goals that are critical to undermining the Taliban.

“Whoever that winner is going to be needs to understand the state of their country,” Sen Lindsay Graham, who travelled here with McCain, told reporters. “The institutions in this country are not working.”—AP