Afghanistan now sits in this awkward interim phase on this first day of Ramadan (Ramazan in Farsi) between the election and the official announcement of the preliminary results in about ten days. Allegations of fraud are being hurled back and forth between Karzai operatives and Abdullah’s campaigners and Carlotta Gall is claiming a few purple fingers actually were lopped off over in Nangarhar Province. Talk in Kabul is bubbling up that the was much more violence in the provinces than was originally thought while the capital was spared save for the Karte Nau incident. No one knows whether Karzai’s dreadful alliance of a who’s who of skeletons in Afghanistan’s closet will hold together beyond the next few weeks. Dr. Abdullah will not take a defeat lying down either but the rumors of “Iranian-style” streets protests to come are being denied by those at his headquarters. For now, Afghanistan begins it’s lunar month of fasting and it’s politicians are just beginning to bicker. Where it will lead, no one here really has any idea.