There is no obvious successor to President Hamid Karzai among the ten candidates still in the race, Kai Eide writes in an article on the Foreign Policy's AfPak channel.

Eide, currently a PRIO Visiting Fellow at Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., draws attention to the large share of former warlords among the candidates for the 2014 Presidential election, a number much higher than in 2009. He also draws attention to the general apology offered by Rashid Dostum, who runs as vicepresident for Ashraf Ghani, and asks whether the apology may open the door to a process of reconciliation.

Kai Eide was the U.N. Special Representative to Afghanistan from 2008 to 2010.