Tag: afghanistan elections
Afghanistan Election Talks Stall As Abdullah Rejects Outcome Of Audit

Afghanistan Election Talks Stall As Abdullah Rejects Outcome Of Audit

By Ali M. Latifi and Shashank Bengali, Los Angeles Times

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah said Monday that he would not accept the outcome of an internationally backed audit of a disputed election runoff and that talks over sharing power with his opponent are deadlocked.

The announcement by an emotional and weary-looking Abdullah left in doubt the viability of a national unity government that U.S. officials have said is necessary to preserve political stability in Afghanistan. Abdullah and his rival, former World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, have been unable to agree on the details of a power-sharing arrangement despite intensifying pressure from the White House.

President Barack Obama spoke to both candidates Saturday and stressed the need to complete negotiations on the government “as soon as possible in the interest of shoring up international support for Afghanistan and preserving Afghan stability,” according to a White House statement.

Abdullah has long maintained that the June runoff — which came after Abdullah won the most votes in the first round of balloting — was marred by extensive fraud in Ahmadzai’s favor.
Addressing reporters at his residence in Kabul, Abdullah said he “was and is the winner of the election based upon clean votes.”

His announcement came hours after a meeting between the candidates at which Ahmadzai rejected Abdullah’s demand that the results of the audit of all 8 million votes cast in the June vote not be announced.

“That was a red line in the sand for Dr. Ghani,” said Muslim Saadat, an Abdullah campaign spokesman.

The audit was completed Friday, election officials said, and results are expected to be announced within days.

Abdullah, who pulled out of Afghanistan’s last election, in 2009, citing fraud in favor of then-President Hamid Karzai, did not comment on the future of a unity government, saying that he would “consult with the Afghan people in order to reach a decision.”

Saadat said Abdullah and his running mates would meet with political allies from all 34 Afghan provinces over the next week.

“We value the majority decision,” Saadat said. “What the people decide, we will abide by.”

U.S. officials worry that Abdullah’s supporters will renew calls to form a parallel government, which reached such intensity in July that Secretary of State John F. Kerry made an unannounced visit to Kabul to head off such a plan. That visit led to the agreement by both candidates to audit all 8 million votes and share power in a new government, but the recount has been marred by major delays and repeated threats by Abdullah to withdraw from the process.

Abdullah’s announcement Monday came a day before a national holiday marking the assassination of militia commander Ahmed Shah Massoud, a hero among many Afghan northerners for his role in the anti-Soviet resistance. Abdullah, a former close adviser to Massoud, urged his supporters to remain calm, but many Afghans worried that tensions could escalate on the holiday.

Los Angeles Times special correspondent Latifi reported from Kabul. Times staff writer Bengali reported from Mumbai, India.

AFP Photo/Shah Marai

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Abdullah Threatens To Back Out Of Afghanistan Election

Abdullah Threatens To Back Out Of Afghanistan Election

By Ali M. Latifi, Los Angeles Times

The campaign team of Abdullah Abdullah — the former foreign minister running against Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai for the presidency of Afghanistan — has issued a 24-hour notice to the United Nations and international observers that if changes are not made to the processes of the ongoing audit of all eight million votes cast in the second round of the election, they will back out of the election process entirely.

“We will give one day to the international community to review and assure that the vote auditing and the political negotiations are moving forward properly… If our demands are not met and the auditing not conducted legitimately and the political talks without honesty, then we will withdraw from both processes,” said Abdullah spokesman Syed Fazel Sancharaki.

The Monday afternoon warning came a week after the team of Reform and Partnership, as Abdullah’s campaign refers to themselves, backed out of the audit claiming their concerns about widespread fraud in the June 14 runoff were ignored by the United Nations.

“From the beginning we were willing to join the audit because we thought it would lead to the separation of clean and fraudulent votes. That’s what we were working towards,” Muslim Saadat, a spokesman for the Abdullah campaign, told The Times last week, after the Reform and Partnership team backed out of the audit.

If followed through, Monday’s warning would mark the fourth and presumably final time the Reform and Partnership team has backed out of the election process since the second round in June.

What sets Monday’s threat apart from prior boycotts is that for the first time since Abdullah and Ghani first pledged to form a government of national unity per the audit result, the Reform and Partnership team has threatened to walk away from the political process that was intended to be carried out in parallel with the technical process.

Sancharaki said his team would “form a national unity government only when all the results are finalized” and fraudulent votes are separated from clean ones.

That political process included negotiations on dividing responsibilities and posts of the potential unity government.

The threat of backing out from the political negotiations is seen as a formidable shift among the Abdullah camp.

Speaking to The Times last week, Saadat said, with the exception of a couple of points, which had been referred to the candidates themselves, the political process had been “mostly on track.” The technical side, however, including criteria for the invalidation of votes, “saw consistent blocks along the way,” Saadat said.

Referring to a “triangle of fraud” comprised of the presidential palace, the Independent Election Commission and the Ghani campaign, representatives of the Abdullah team presented evidence of what they said were 1.5 million result sheets panning several districts.

Most notably, the Reform and Partnership team showed examples of what they said were result sheets from 2,200 polling stations which showed nearly 100 percent of votes for Ghani, featured similar handwriting, and were signed by a single person.

On sheets where there were signatures by Abdullah campaign observers, a representative from the Reform and Partnership team said votes for Dr Abdullah were entirely absent.

“That means the Abdullah team observer could sign, but not vote,” the representative said.

Sources speaking to The Times said Monday’s threat of withdrawal from the political process may be a sign of disunity among the Reform and Partnership team.

The most divisive figures, said sources speaking on condition of anonymity, remain Mohammad Mohaqiq — the Hazara warlord running as Abdullah’s second vice president — and Atta Muhammad Nur — the governor of northern Balkh province.

Nur, who had previously warned of nation-wide unrest if Abdullah lost the presidency in a fraudulent ballot, issued a similar warning on his Facebook page shortly after the press conference:
“It is to be noted that the national and international institutions would be accountable for any consequences, despite our previous warnings which have been ignored by them. Those, who ridiculed the election process with industrial-scale fraud and are attempting to grab power by legitimizing their frauds, would be accountable.”

Monday’s threat came 24 hours before the date Hamid Karzai, the incumbent, had hoped the new president would be inaugurated after the initial August 2 date was pushed back to accommodate the audit.

In a statement to the media, Aimal Faizi, presidential palace spokesman, tried to ease fears that Karzai would vacate his post prior to a resolution of the election deadlock.

“The President is not considering the step down before the official transfer of power to the new Afghan President. It is unconstitutional to step down before officially transferring the power to his successor.”

International and domestic election watchers had hoped the matter would be resolved before a September 4 NATO conference was scheduled to begin in Wales. If no president is elected by that time, Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, defense minister, would attend as the Afghan representative.

AFP Photo/Shah Marai

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Kerry Tries To Calm Afghan Presidential Candidates

Kerry Tries To Calm Afghan Presidential Candidates

By Shashank Bengali and Hashmat Baktash, Los Angeles Times

KABUL, Afghanistan — Secretary of State John F. Kerry held urgent meetings Friday with both presidential candidates in Afghanistan in a bid to resolve a messy election dispute that threatens to unravel years of U.S. efforts to build a fledgling democracy.

Kerry met separately with Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah in Kabul in a hastily arranged visit that underscored the Obama administration’s concerns that the political impasse could turn violent. Both men have claimed victory in the election to replace President Hamid Karzai, who is constitutionally barred from a third term.

The crisis escalated Monday when election officials announced initial results from a June 14 run-off vote that gave a large and surprising lead to Ghani, a former finance minister, after he finished well behind Abdullah in the first round of balloting in April. Abdullah has alleged widespread fraud and accused election officials of conspiring with Ghani’s campaign and Karzai’s office to rig the results.

Both men believe they have won the race and are haggling over the terms of a partial recount of ballots over the next two weeks.

“The results that were announced on Monday are preliminary; they are neither authoritative nor final, and no one should be stating a victory at this point in time,” Kerry said before meeting with Abdullah.

The U.N. mission in Afghanistan announced a proposal for an expanded audit of votes that would include thousands of ballot boxes where Western officials believe the chances for fraud and ballot-box stuffing were high. They include ballot boxes that were returned with more than 595 ballots, female-only ballot boxes that were staffed by male election workers, certain voting sites where votes from women exceeded those from men, and ballot boxes where the votes received by either candidate totaled a multiple of 50, starting with 100.

Under those terms, some 8,050 ballot boxes would be audited, or more than one-third of the total. The U.N. said that represents 3.5 million votes, far above the 1 million-vote margin Ghani holds in the initial results, and more than enough to swing the election in either direction.

Ghani’s campaign had reportedly acceded to the U.N. proposal in meetings Thursday, but Abdullah’s camp was believed to be holding out for an even wider audit of up to 11,000 ballot boxes.

Abdullah did not comment publicly on the U.N. plan but said in brief remarks before meeting Kerry that he hoped “all of us will utilize the precious time of your presence here in the best interests of our country.”

Ghani, who has told supporters he is confident of victory, said he favored “the most intensive and extensive audit possible.”

“Our commitment is to ensure that the election process enjoys the integrity and the legitimacy that the people of Afghanistan and the world will believe,” Ghani said.

Los Angeles Times staff writer Bengali reported from Mumbai, India, and special correspondent Baktash from Kabul.

AFP Photo / Jim Bourg

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Abdullah Victory Claim Inflames Afghan Election Dispute

Abdullah Victory Claim Inflames Afghan Election Dispute

Kabul (AFP) – Presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah claimed victory on Tuesday in Afghanistan’s disputed election, blaming fraud for putting him behind in preliminary results as fears rise of instability and ethnic unrest.

Abdullah told a rally of thousands of rowdy supporters in Kabul he would fight on to win the presidency, but he called for patience from loyalists who demanded he declare a “parallel government” to rule the country.

“We are proud, we respect the votes of the people, we were the winner,” Abdullah said. “Without any doubt or hesitation, we will not accept a fraudulent result, not today, not tomorrow, never.”

Before he spoke, a huge photograph of President Hamid Karzai was ripped down from the stage — underlining the boiling anger among Abdullah’s supporters after Monday’s preliminary result in favor of poll rival Ashraf Ghani.

The election stand-off has sparked concern that protests could spiral into ethnic violence and even lead to a return to the fighting between warlords that ravaged Afghanistan during the 1992-1996 civil war.

Both Abdullah and Ghani called for the country to remain united as it faces a difficult transfer of power at the same time that 50,000 U.S.-led NATO troops wind down their battle against Taliban insurgents and aid money declines.

“Afghanistan’s unity is never in question,” Ghani, a former World Bank economist, told reporters. “We accept the preliminary result of the election, and I ask all my countrymen to patiently wait for the final results. Our votes are clean and will pass any auditing.”

President Karzai, the United Nations and the United States all called for candidates to respect the election timetable, which allows for auditing and complaints before the official result is released on about July 24.

“The results are not final and are subject to change, and… it would be premature for either of the candidates to claim victory,” the UN mission in Afghanistan said, in an apparent criticism of Abdullah.

The mission urged both campaigns to prevent supporters “from taking steps that could lead to civil disorder and instability.”

Karzai, who is constitutionally barred from a third term in office, has stayed publicly neutral in the lengthy election, but Abdullah supporters accuse him of fixing the run-off vote in Ghani’s favor.

The president, who came to power after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, welcomed the result announcements, but said the winner would be known only “after complaints are addressed and genuine votes separated”.

Independent Election Commission head Ahmad Yusuf Nuristani admitted on Monday there had been fraud by the security forces and senior government officials.

Before Monday’s result, the two rival teams were in intense negotiations over the extent of a proposed fraud probe to check thousands of the most suspicious ballot boxes.

Ghani said he would sign up to a UN-backed audit of about 7,000 of the 23,000 polling stations, while Abdullah has pushed for about 11,000 stations to be re-checked.

Earlier, the United States issued a strong warning over reports that Abdullah would form a “parallel government” in defiance of the results — which said Ghani took 56.4 percent of the vote to Abdullah’s 43.5 percent.

“The United States expects Afghan electoral institutions to conduct a full and thorough review of all reasonable allegations of irregularities,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement from Washington. “Any action to take power by extra-legal means will cost Afghanistan the financial and security support of the United States and the international community.”

Abdullah, a former anti-Taliban resistance fighter, said Kerry would visit Kabul on Friday in a bid to help solve the crisis.

The insurgents, who see the election as a U.S. plot to control Afghanistan, killed 16 people, including four Czech soldiers, in a suicide bombing north of Kabul on Tuesday.

Afghanistan’s international backers have lobbied hard to try to ensure a smooth election process, but the contested outcome realised their worst fears and risks setting back gains made since the Taliban fell.

Abdullah’s supporters took the street 10 days ago when reports emerged that Ghani was well ahead in the vote count, though protests have so far been peaceful.

Ghani attracts much of his support from the Pashtun tribes of the south and east, while Abdullah’s vote base is among the Tajiks and other northern Afghan groups — echoing the ethnic divisions of the civil war.

Karzai is due to hand over power at an inauguration ceremony on August 2.

AFP Photo/Shah Marai