Abdullah widely expected to boycott Afghan run-off election - washingtonpost.com

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By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, October 31, 2009 11:51 AM

KABUL -- A presidential run-off election planned for Nov. 7 was thrown into turmoil Saturday, with the main challenger to President Hamid Karzai, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, widely expected to pull out of the race.

Campaign spokesmen for Abdullah said he had not made a final decision but would announce it here Sunday at a gathering of his top supporters from around the country. Some analysts suggested the boycott threat was an eleventh-hour ploy to win a power-sharing agreement with Karzai.

However, several sources close to Abdullah said he had no option but to boycott the contest. They said Karzai had refused to meet Abdullah's demands to fire the nation's top election official and take other measures to prevent the fraud that marred the original presidential election in August.

"We don't want to boycott, but Mr. Karzai has not accepted any conditions, so he left us with no other choice," said one member of Abdullah's political team, speaking on the condition of anonymity because Abdullah has not yet announced his plans. "There is no guarantee that a second round would be free and fair. It would only create more problems than it solves."

The prospect of Abdullah's withdrawal could plunge Afghanistan into an even deeper political crisis after weeks of mounting tension and uncertainty over how to form a new government. Karzai's victory in the Aug. 20 presidential election was found invalid because of widespread fraud, leading to plans for the runoff.

A canceled or marred election would further complicate matters for the Obama administration, which is nearing a decision on whether to significantly expand its military commitment to the war against Afghan and al-Qaeda insurgents. Washington has been counting on the election to produce a credible administration and partner in the war effort.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who arrived in Abu Dhabi early Saturday for a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, played down the importance of a possible Abdullah withdrawal, however, saying that his decision was a "personal choice which may or may not be made."

Asked whether a run-off would be legitimate with only one candidate running, Clinton said that "other countries" had faced similar situations. "We see that happen in our own country where, for whatever combination of reasons, one of the candidates decides no to go forward. I don't think it has anything to do with the legitimacy of the election," Clinton said.

U.S. officials had pressed Karzai hard to accept the run-off and he reluctantly agreed, although there was widespread concern among Afghans that the second round would not only be marred by fraud but would be even more vulnerable to insurgent attacks than the first poll. This week, the Taliban killed six U.N. workers and threatened to violently sabotage the Nov. 7 vote.

Aides to Karzai said Saturday that Abdullah has no right to boycott the election and that if he does, it will be up to the Afghan election commission to decide what to do. However, they also said he is legally allowed to simply resign from the race, in which case Karzai would automatically win.

"He can resign, but he cannot boycott, because he already accepted the election the first time," Moinuddin Manastial, a legislator and campaign aide to Karzai, said late Saturday. "He is making excuses to do something that is not in the constitution, while we are ready to go for the elections 100 percent."

Election officials said that they are still preparing to hold the vote, that Afghan security forces are ready to protect the voters at more than 6,000 polling stations across the country, and that neither candidate has the right to withdraw at this late date. Whether Abdullah boycotts the vote or not, his name will remain on the ballot.

Some analysts said they thought the door might still be open to a last-minute compromise between Karzai and Abdullah. They said Abdullah's threats to quit were aimed at undermining Karzai's electoral legitimacy and at pressing him for a power-sharing deal. But there was no hint from either camp that an agreement is still being explored.

Independent election experts said it is not clear what will happen if Abdullah does quit the race. They said most of the possible options -- canceling the vote and having Karzai declared president; having him run alone; or postponing the race until spring and replacing Abdullah with the third-highest vote-getter -- would either leave the country in political limbo or Karzai as head of a weak and illegitimate new administration.

"The situation is both depressing and complicated," said Ahmad Nader Nadery, chairman of the private Free and Fair Elections Foundation. "The law is silent on what to do in this situation, and whatever happens is likely to bring us more deeply into trouble, because we will probably end up with a president who did not get the minimum number of votes in a fair election."

Local analysts and Kabul residents glued to TV news stations Saturday expressed concern that violence could erupt in the capital and other cities if Abdullah quits the race amid angry recriminations and Karzai remains in office. Some of Abdullah's powerful supporters who command regional or private militias have vowed not to recognize or obey a new Karzai administration.

Abdullah, who abruptly canceled a scheduled trip to India on Saturday, has delayed announcing his decision for the past several days amid a flurry of private negotiations and meetings involving Karzai, Abdullah and their political aides and allies, as well as several foreign diplomats.

But sources close to the discussions told various media outlets late Friday and Saturday that talks between the two rival leaders collapsed Friday after Karzai had already announced he would not meet Abdullah's demands to fire the election commission chairman and other officials.

Since then, several sources said, Abdullah has leaned toward boycotting the contest, which Karzai has been widely expected to win. In the first round, even after hundreds of thousands of votes for Karzai were found invalid and discounted, the president won more than 49 percent of the vote, while Abdullah won less than 30 per cent.

Although Abdullah's public manner has been polite and his demands have sounded reasonable, there is widespread public skepticism about his sincerity. Some analysts say he wants to remain in the race but is surrounded by ambitious allies who have been pressing him to make a deal with Karzai.

Diplomatic sources said earlier this week that Karzai was open to forming a "government of unity" after the elections that would include Abdullah and his allies, but that he would not make any deal in advance.

Some experts and diplomats have suggested that if the country's political crisis deepens or there is an eruption of violence, the wisest solution would be to establish an interim or caretaker government and hold a new election in the spring, when the winter snows have melted and voters can go to the polls again.

But U.S. officials already appear to be preparing to accept Karzai's extended presidency as a fait accompli. Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who personally persuaded Karzai to accept the run-off during a visit to Kabul, told a TV interviewer in Washington on Friday that he has confidence in Karzai's political resilience and that the Afghan president is "prepared to embrace reforms" in a new term.

Staff writer Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.