Afghanistan has never fired the first bullet, so that's unlikely.
Aah the innocence of it all. Look I never said Afghanistan in itself is doing it. I said when Afghanistan is used (meaning Afghan land and man power is used). That is to say when your controllers do them but using Afghanistan.
The main factor is that Hamid Karzai is out of the game, which means that many of his votes will automatically go to Mr. Ghani.
He has also a strong team behind him, as i said Khalilzad and other big names in afghan politics.
Mr. Ghani is already leading the pre-polls.
Hamid Karzai may be out but we have another Karzai who is also running. This is from The Times of London.
"The older brother of Hamid Karzai, the departing President of Afghanistan, was one of many last-minute entrants in the race to replace him.
Qayum Karzai, 56, joins at least 17 other men, many of whom are warlords or politicians, who will stand in the poll, which is due to take place next April."
Full article here
Karzai’s brother joins scramble for election | The Times
That means that all the Hamid Karzai votes and connection won't be going to Ashraf Ghani but to Qayum Karzai.
Having Zalmay Khalilzad in his team won't bring him much benefit unless Ashraf Ghani has decided to be the absolute puppet of Washington, and is expecting their spooks to do the trick for him.
Thats probably also the reason why HK has delayed signing the BSA as explained by former Indian diplomat M K Bhadrakumar here.
"What matters critically, however, is Karzai’s calculus. Certainly, his last-minute announcement that he would leave it to his successor to sign the BSA took the US by surprise, as admitted,
here, by none other than the US special representative James Dobbins over the weekend. That is to say, Karzai would have anticipated Rice would probably come with the diktat, ‘Sign, or else.’ (By the way, the visit was at Karzai’s invitation.)
So, he presumably kept a
wish list of “preconditions” for signing the BSA– termination of the US military raids of Afghan homes, release of Guantanamo Bay detainees, commencement of immediate peace talks by the US with the Taliban, inclusion of Bamyan in the list of the US-NATO military bases,
and firm US assurance of non-interference in the forthcoming Afghan presidential election on April 5."
The full article can be found here
A windfall Afghan exit strategy for Obama - Indian Punchline