Richard Kraemer, a senior program officer at the National Endowment for Democracy, spoke about the future of Afghanistan in an event sponsored by the School of Foreign Service and the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding on Wednesday in the Intercultural Center.

Kraemer, who specializes in the Middle East and North Africa, discussed Afghanistan’s recent presidential elections. In what was alleged to be a fraudulent result, Abdullah Abdullah was defeated by Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai for the presidency. After intense negotiations, the government decided to appoint Ahmadzai as president and Abdullah as CEO — a newly re-established position equated to that of a prime minister — of Afghanistan.

“For an already divided society, this has been one of the most divisive issues we’ve seen. … Everyone has a view on it,” Kraemer said. “There are a lot of misconceptions … all that are going to have to be managed as Abdullah and Ahmadzai try to go forward in the unity government.”

Tamara Sonn, the Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani professor in the history of Islam, said that the recent events in Afghanistan suffer from a lack of coverage, and that Kraemer could provide necessary insight.

“It’s a difficult situation and it’s very unclear how that power sharing arrangement will work,” Sonn said. “We’re very lucky to have with us Richard Kraemer to tell us a little bit about the status of the power-sharing agreement and some kind of ideas about what might happen next.”

According to Kraemer, the people of Afghanistan were very hopeful as the first phase of the presidential elections neared.

“Going back to April 5, there was a tremendous degree of elation, I mean, we saw almost 60 percent of the population turn out and vote after what had been a series of lackluster performances in 2009 onward,” Kraemer said.

Kraemer said that Afghanistan’s electoral process has the potential to be fair and balanced in the future.

“This is a very inspiring time for Afghans and those of us that work on Afghanistan who care about the country’s future, because we saw these people brave the likelihood of being subjected to any kind of insurgent violence,” Kraemer said. “We saw that there had been decreasing amounts of fraud.”

Ahmadzai, a former World Bank economist and finance minister, won the popular vote over Abdullah, a doctor and former foreign minister, by about 56 percent to 44 percent, which some claim was the result of fraud. Kraemer said that he was disappointed in the ensuing accusations, although he understood them.

“You can see the murkiness, you can get a sense of the degree of fraud, you can get a sense of why there were various sides that thought they had been wrongly treated in this process,” Kraemer said.

Kraemer said that the problems with the election put Afghanistan in a precarious position.

“The first couple weeks now have actually been encouraging,” Kraemer said. “[Ahmadzai has] said a lot of the right things, he’s taken a lot of the right steps and he’s taken some concrete action as well.”

Thaameran Sarveswaran (SFS ’18) said that went to the talk because of his interest in Afghanistan and South Asia and was eager to hear from an expert.

“Specifically to me, I’m studying Farsi, so I’m working with the region,” he said. “I came because [the topic] was Afghanistan.”

According to Sarveswaran, Kraemer’s speech gave an interesting perspective on the current turmoil in Afghanistan.

“[Kraemer’s] insight into the Afghan democratic process and the future of the Afghan unity government post withdrawal was thought provoking and optimistic,” Sarveswaran said.