KABUL — Both the winner of tomorrow's Afghan presidential election and his international partners face a daunting game of catch-up if they are to turn the tide of the Taliban insurgency.

They will all confront the added challenge of growing war-weariness among Afghans, Americans and other nations that provide troops. Resources are tight among coalition members facing their own domestic economic problems.

The international community is desperate for an Afghan president seen as capable of tackling the problems of insurgency, narcotics and government corruption. Obama and other world leaders need such a colleague to give hope to their constituents as casualties rise.

President Hamid Karzai leads in the polls. Most analysts believe he will win a second five-year term, barring a surge in support for his top competitor, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, a Tajik whose ethnicity makes him unacceptable to a large number of Pashtuns, the nation's dominant ethnic group.

Karzai and Abdullah could also find themselves in an October run-off if Karzai doesn't get more than 50 percent of the votes this week.

There are more than 30 other candidates, but none besides Karzai has a wide following. A poll by the International Republican Institute released last week found that 44 percent of Afghans plan to vote for Karzai, compared with 26 percent for Abdullah. A third candidate, former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani, trailed well behind.

"People still support (Karzai) because despite the high number of contenders, they don't see a real alternative," said Thomas Ruttig, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, a nonprofit research group. Abdullah and Ghani "were part of Karzai's policies, so they're also responsible for the failures linked to them."

The Taliban yesterday pursued a campaign to disrupt the vote. A suicide car bombing here killed nine and wounded 53 others.

And a roadside bomb killed two U.S. troops and wounded three others in eastern Afghanistan, while residents in the war-wracked south reported stepped-up Taliban intimidation to thwart voting.

NEUTRAL STANCE

The articulate, multilingual Karzai was once seen as a dynamic leader. Years of corruption, ineffectual government and rising violence have tarnished that image.

The Obama administration has declared itself neutral in the contest, representing a step away from the warm embrace that the Bush leadership once held for Karzai.

U.S. officials have made clear that although they would work with Karzai, they won't accept business as usual during a second term.

"If you get a new government in place that is more of the same, you fail to satisfy expectations of the people, and that would not advance the national process in the way that is so sorely needed," said Timothy Michael Carney, a former U.S. ambassador who heads the U.S. electoral support team in Kabul.

For the Obama administration, the stakes are high. With troops moving out of Iraq, Afghanistan has become President Obama's war, and his administration has spent political capital to increase troop levels and financial resources for the country at a time when many of the president's supporters want an end to the conflicts of his predecessor.

The U.S. hopes the election will give Afghanistan's leader a broad mandate allowing the president to carry out reform and reach out to supposed moderates in the Taliban — if any are willing to break ranks with the hard-liners.

However, it is unlikely that significant elements in the Taliban would agree to talks without a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces.

For now, however, the focus is not on withdrawal but adding more troops.

Just three years ago, the U.S. had only about 20,000 forces in the country. Today, it has more than triple that, on its way to 68,000 by year's end. U.S. deaths in Afghanistan will set a record in 2009.

Sen. John McCain, the former presidential candidate, called yesterday for troop levels to be "significantly increased," including an additional three Marine battalions in the most violent province — Helmand, where Marines based at Kane'ohe Bay are part of the fighting against the Taliban.

SLOW REFORM

No matter the number of troops, reform after the election will still be slow. If Karzai wins, his government could be beholden to power brokers.

"There will be no meaningful government services in far too many areas. There will be no Afghan source of security. Instead, there will be a corrupt and ineffective police, no courts and no jails," said Anthony Cordesman, an analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The Taliban and other jihadist movements will still be able to exploit a near power vacuum in many rural parts of the country, and the central government's failures in a good part of the rest."

Carney, the U.S. election official, believes tomorrow's vote will be a referendum on Karzai's stewardship, and a test of how far Afghanistan has "moved away from the old think of ethnic politics, or of deal making, smoke-filled room politics."