In a message released today by their leader Mullah Omar, the Taliban has announced that they don’t intend to field candidates or take part in the 2014 Afghan Presidential Election, saying it wasn’t worth the effort.
Calling it a “deceiving drama,” Mullah Omar insisted that the election was a “waste of time” and that instead the Taliban will focus on fighting foreign occupation forces until they leave the country.
This is in keeping with the Taliban’s position on previous elections since the US occupation began in 2001, as they have long insisted that the Afghan government holds no real power so long as it depends on foreign troops to stay in power.
With NATO hyping its post-2014 drawdown there was some hope the Taliban might enter a power-sharing agreement to end the ongoing war, but it seems that won’t come by way of the next election, and will still have to be negotiated at some future date.
Just as the Mujahideen of the "Cold War" era were in opposition to the Northern Alliance Shura-i-Nizar and their anti-Pashtun orientation and collaboration with Soviet Russia, the Taliban of today were in the days of yore the same Mujahideen and thus opposed to foreign occupation and or collaboration.
Taliban get my respect for hardcore resistance of foreign occupation. They of course lose my respect for a few other reasons, but hey, pobody's nerfect in Australia.