Afghanistan's main opposition politician Abdullah Abdullah criticised the body carrying out the count in the recent elections today, claiming the commission was on the side of incumbent President Hamid Karzai.

His accusations come as NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen expressed his own concerns over mounting international scepticism about the war in Afghanistan.

Increasing violence after eight years of conflict has led to a growing debate about the effectiveness of the campaign and some anaysts believe the outcry over fraudulent elections might prove to be the jolt NATO needs to revamp its Afghanistan policy.

Corruption
Radio Netherlands' Bette Dam is one such expert. She's spent the last two years working as a journalist in Afghanistan and saw first hand how rife is corruption in Afghan politics.

"It was obvious that the Karzai government is full of corruption. That is because a lot of things went wrong. There is no prosperity, there is no future in Afghanistan. A lot of mistakes were made by [the Afghans] themselves and by the internationals, so they are using their own patronised and corrupt networks. They rely on them because there is no alternative. That is what Karzai has done, try to keep in power by using these old Afghan structures."

As the counting continues after the August elections, today saw the Afghan Electoral Complaints Commission [ECC] invalidate ballots from the elections for the first time, saying there had been 'clear and convincing evidence of fraud' in a number of polling stations. Earlier this week the commission also 'quarantined' results from 600 other stations. While the elections have been widely criticised, these moves show that they have also been relatively transparent. The fraud that is coming to light illuminates how the Afghan system actually operates, something which Bette Dam argues should have been on the NATO's radar from the start.

"The fighting of the last eight years is not helping at all. All the regions where the troops are it's unsafe. The Afghans are not working with the internationals. So there will be a new phase and [US General Stanley] McChrystal [commander of ISAF/non-ISAF troops in Afghanistan] is thinking about that. It looks like there will be a new strategy of trying to talk to the Afghans and connect with them instead of just trying to find the hidden enemy and trying to kill them because that is not going to work."

Strategy rethink
According to Bette Dam, this revelation of corruption might be what the international community needs to turn the corner in a conflict that appears to be losing public support. It might prompt a drastic rethink of strategy that understands, processes and digests the internal workings of Afghan society in such a way as to bring them on side as opposed to galvanising support against efforts that are being made.

"I think now the ball is with the international troops. They have to realise what is going on and they have rethink their strategy. That is what is going on right now."