This weekend, we expect to hear that the Afghan Electoral Complaints Commission will call for a run off presidential election , saying that while the U.S. backed-incumbent Hamid Karzai won 54.6 percent of the vote, too many of those ballots were fraudulent, and therefore he didn’t get the majority of votes. The top two candidates, Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, should therefore face a run off.

But will this lead to more political stability or less?

At best, the run off will be held off in about a month, during Afghanistan’s brutal winter, which will mean lower turn out.  Moreover, many Afghans dismiss the process entirely calling their election system inherently fraud. That is, their vote is no more likely to count the next time as it did the first. This piece captures the sentiment amongst Afghans beautifully.

Many, particularly the Americans, had hoped Karzai and Abdullah would agree to some kind of reconciliation government so that the run off would not be necessary precisely because of the reasons listed.

Before the election, officials here in Washington insisted that it was critical that the elections be seen as legitimate. That now seems impossible. I can’t help but wonder if in hindsight, Afghanistan should have been declared a state of emergency until the country could better hold elections.

Either way, most agree the Obama administration cannot seriously consider its options in Afghanistan until this weekend’s announcement. So for all the meetings and discussions, in some ways the debate about what the United States should do next in Afghanistan, amidst rising violence and a resurgent Taliban, starts anew this weekend. It will all hinge on what the commission says and how the candidates and their supporters respond.