Karzai agrees to runoff - washingtonpost.com

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Investigation strips Afghan president of a third of his votes

By Joshua Partlow, Karen DeYoung and Debbi Wilgoren
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 1:09 PM

KABUL -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday that he accepted a finding of widespread fraud in the August presidential elections and endorsed a runoff vote scheduled for Nov. 7.

The announcement came a day after the U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission invalidated nearly a million votes for Karzai, stripping him of close to a third of his tally. Officially, Karzai won 49.67 percent of the vote, barely below the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff. That finding triggered a constitutionally mandated second round of voting between him and the runner-up, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.

President Obama praised Karzai's decision to acknowledge the fraud finding and participate in a runoff, calling it "an important step forward in ensuring a credible process for the Afghan people which results in a government that reflects their will."

Obama telephoned Karzai Tuesday morning to congratulate him personally for agreeing to a runoff election. In brief remarks in the Oval Office after meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Obama pledged U.S. support for the new round of voting.

"President Karzai, as well as the other candidates, I think, have shown that they have the interests of the Afghan people at heart, that this is a reflection of a commitment to rule of law and an insistence that the Afghan people's will should be done," Obama said. "And so I expressed the American people's appreciation for this step."

Obama praised Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) for interceding with Karzai during a visit to Afghanistan, calling Kerry's efforts "extraordinarily constructive and very helpful."

The president called the Afghan elections "difficult" but did not comment about his upcoming decision on sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan to battle a resurgent Taliban movement.

"We have seen the candidates expressing a willingness to abide by constitutional law, and there is a path forward in order to complete this election process," he said.

Karzai's acceptance of another round of voting, after weeks of resistance and months of political turmoil, should allow the Obama administration to proceed with a high-level review of its faltering Afghanistan war strategy, a process that has been hamstrung by the delay in determining who its Afghan government partner will be. The White House has been under increasing congressional and public pressure to make a decision on whether to send tens of thousands more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, as requested by the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in the country.

"I congratulate the Afghan people on the patience and resilience they have shown throughout this long election process," Obama said in a White House statement issued Tuesday morning. He said it was "a testimony to the bravery of the Afghan people that so many of them did come out to vote in the first round under tremendously difficult circumstances."

Karzai had come under relentless international pressure to accept the findings of the complaints commission and pursue a path that allowed the results to be viewed with legitimacy.

Speaking at a news conference in the presidential palace -- flanked by Kerry, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry; the U.N. special envoy and ambassadors from Britain and France -- Karzai emphasized that the United States and the international community need to help provide better security in the runoff, "so that when they vote, that vote is not called fraud."

Kerry, who met at length with Karzai Monday, said "the international community is 100 percent committed to helping to carry out this election."

Throughout the political storm, Karzai's office cast doubt on the credibility of the investigation, citing foreign interference and holding out the possibility that Karzai would use his influence with the Afghan election commission to reject the fraud findings.

Even as the results of the fraud investigation began to leak last week, Karzai continued to insist he had won legitimately, based on a preliminary tally announced in September by a government-allied election commission.

Endorsing a new round of balloting "means that the country is going forward to security and stability in the country, and that builds the trust of the people in the election," Noor ul-Haq Ulumi, a parliament member from Kandahar, said Tuesday. "The people who are in favor of a stable Afghanistan will definitely go and vote for a second time."

The decision earned accolades from around the globe. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Karzai "has made it clear that the constitutional process must be fully respected." Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he was "very encouraged" that Karzai had given the green light to "an important second chance for the people of Afghanistan to have their voices heard." And British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Karzai had been statesmanlike and made clear "that due constitutional process must be followed."

Before Karzai announced he accepted the commission's finding, Afghan officials close to him had been split over what he would do. One said that Karzai would be amenable to a runoff election but that there must be a better public explanation for why more than a million votes -- including nearly 200,000 for Abdullah -- were tossed out.

"These people will need to be told why their votes were canceled," the official said.

Parliament member Mohammad Moin Marastyal said a second round would deepen ethnic rifts in the country, with Pashtuns lining up behind Karzai and Tajiks behind Abdullah, potentially bringing more instability and violence.

"The same problems we have now will be far worse than they are today," he said.

In an interview Monday with National Public Radio, Abdullah said acceptance of the revised results and agreement to a runoff "will restore the faith of the people in the process."

DeYoung and Wilgoren reported from Washington. Staff writers Michael D. Shear in Washington, Colum Lynch in New York and special correspondent Javed Hamdard in Kabul contributed to this report.