Kabul: Afghan President Hamid Karzai intended to announce on Tuesday how he would "set the stage" for resolving the country's post-election political crisis, according to US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"I am very hopeful that we will see a resolution in line with the constitutional order in the next several days, but I don't want to pre-empt in any way President Karzai's statement which will set the stage for how we go forward in the next stage of this," she told reporters on Monday.
Clinton, who spoke several times with Karzai in recent days, declined to say whether he had decided to accept the findings of the UN-backed fraud investigation, which threw out nearly a third of his ballots from the disputed August election on Monday, setting the stage for a runoff.
Two international officials familiar with the investigation by the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) told The Associated Press that the findings showed Karzai falling below the 50 per cent required to avoid a runoff with his chief rival, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah.
An independent calculation by an election monitoring group, Democracy International, showed Karzai with 48.3 per cent, or about 2.1 (m) million votes, after more than 995-thousand of his votes were thrown out for fraud.
Overall, about 1.3 (m) million votes of the more than 5 (m) million ballots cast were voided.
Abdullah lost more than 201-thousand votes, but his percentage rose to 31.5 per cent from 27.8 per cent previously.
Preliminary results released last month showed Karzai winning the August 20 (2009) election with more than 54 per cent.
However, allegations of voter coercion and ballot box-stuffing prompted the fraud investigation and held up a final proclamation of a winner.
It was unclear whether the Afghan-led Independent Election Commission (IEC) would accept the findings of the fraud panel and announce a runoff.
One option that would preclude a runoff election would be a power-sharing agreement between Karzai and his closest challenger, Abdullah.
An Abdullah campaign spokesman Fazel Sancharaki welcomed the fraud panel's findings and said it would be illegal for the IEC to reject them.
Karzai on Monday assured UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that he would "fully respect" the constitutional process, even if it meant a runoff against his top challenger.
A spokeswoman for the UN chief said Ban had spoken with Karzai earlier in the day and that the UN chief had urged him to respect the constitutional elections process.
Afghan law declares the UN-backed panel the final arbiter on fraud allegations.
Although investigators only released raw data from their findings, it was clear that hundreds of thousands of Karzai votes were voided.
However, the president's supporters on the election commission argued that the partial recount was beyond the normal complaint process and that they must have a say in whether the findings were accepted.
The ECC chairman said he did not see any legal way for the IEC to reject the results but declined to talk about whether the data showed the need for a runoff, saying it was up the IEC to make that call.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said he had "complete faith" in the work of the ECC.
"We expect now the Independent Election Commission to implement those orders so that we can move towards a final certified result or to a runoff if that's required," Aleem Siddique said.
At Monday's press briefing in Washington DC, Clinton declined to say whether US President Barack Obama would withhold a decision on US troop levels until the election crisis was over.
"Obviously this is a major part of our strategic review as to, you know, getting the election behind us, getting a new government that can represent the partnership we're seeking as we move forward," she said.
The Pentagon chief, Robert Gates, on Monday said Obama may not be able to wait until the disputed elections were resolved to decide on a new strategy for Afghanistan.
His comments put him at odds with administration officials who earlier in the day said that no decision should be made until the legitimacy of the Afghan government was clear.
Obama's administration is studying a set of recommendations by General McChrystal, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, for thousands more troops to end the eight-year war.
Comments
0 comment