Presidential contender Abdullah Abdullah has announced he won’t participate in the upcoming runoff election, a move that insures a victory for incumbent Hamid Karzai. It is not clear at this point if he will formally withdraw or if he will simply stop campaigning.

Abdullah has accused the vote counting commission of being biased in favor of Karzai and thus unable to run a fair election campaign. Most observers have indicated that Karzai would win the election whether Abdullah participated or not but this decision could cast doubt on any Karzai victory.

Additional instability is not what either we or the Afghani people needed but it looks like that is what we are all going to get.