Karzai Agrees to Run-Off

Second Afghan Vote Poses Risks for West

By Hasnain Kazim and Matthias Gebauer

The US government had been increasing the pressure by the day. On Tuesday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai gave in and announced he would submit to a run-off election against challenger Abdullah Abdullah. Renewed election fraud could mean a loss of face for the US -- and compromise the West as guarantors of democracy.

REUTERS

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has succumbed to international pressure and announced that he will submit to a run-off.

The waiting for the official election results in Afghanistan has come to an end. On Tuesday, the Election Commission in Afghanistan decided against President Hamid Karzai -- thus joining the United Nations-supported Electoral Complaints Commission, which had found that around one-third of the votes cast in the country's August presidential elections were invalid. Karzai will now face a run-off election against his challenger Abdullah Abdullah on Nov. 7.

Karzai conceded defeat and said that he accepted the decision of the Election Commission, reversing weeks of refusal to submit to a run-off despite numerous indications of election fraud. The initial results had Karzai winning an absolute majority of 54 percent against 28 percent for Abdullah, who spent years as Afghanistan's foreign minister. Now, though, it has become clear that Karzai's share of the vote was below 50 percent.

The allegations of fraud and the seemingly endless waiting for the final results have paralyzed the war-ravaged country in recent weeks. The US sent Senator John Kerry, chairman of the powerful Foreign Relations Committee, to Kabul in an effort to reach a rapid solution. Kerry has met with Karzai five times since Saturday to convince him that a run-off was necessary. Former US diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad, who enjoys great respect in the region, was also in Kabul to push the US position.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner also made the trip and numerous heads of state and government telephoned Karzai and urged him to back down. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton upped the pressure earlier Tuesday by saying "I am very hopeful that we will see a resolution in line with the constitutional order in the next several days."

An Important Step Towards Democracy

Following Karzai's announcement that he would submit to a run-off, US President Barack Obama expressed gratification. "This is an important step forward in ensuring a credible process for the Afghan people which results in a government that reflects their will," Obama said in a statement. "It is now vital that all elements of Afghan society continue to come together to advance democracy, peace and justice."

Getting Karzai to budge required a whirlwind of diplomatic activity. In his announcement accepting the run-off, he said: "We believe the decision of the Independent Election Commission is legitimate, legal and constitutional and it strengthens the path towards democracy."

With their hectic push, negotiators succeeded in preventing a second disgrace. The West's reputation, already heavily burdened by the eight-year-old war and the occasionally overbearing behavior of NATO troops, had been threatened with further damage. The presidential election, which had been propagated by the West as a step toward a better future for Afghanistan, had become a farce as a result of election fraud.

The Taliban's Greatest Victory in Eight Years

"The elections were intended to be a milestone in the country's path towards democracy and stability," Peter Galbraith, the former deputy United Nations envoy who was fired in his dispute over the manipulated election, wrote in this week's SPIEGEL. "Instead, they have destroyed President Karzai's credibility at home and abroad -- and they have undermined the Afghans' trust in democracy. This election has assured the Taliban of its greatest strategic victory in eight years of war."

The fact that Karzai is now agreeing to a run-off vote allows the West, and especially the United States, to save face for the time being. But the threat of that happening will persist if the power hungry president again tries to stand in the away of a truly democratic solution. That would leave egg on the face of the international community, which elevated him into office during the December 2001 Afghanistan Conference in Bonn, Germany. If, for example, ballots are tampered with or other irregularities surface during a run-off between Karzai and Abdullah, the West would be totally compromised as guarantors of democracy.

But even if he is reelected by democratically acceptable means, the question still remains: Can a government under a man like Karzai, who has been considered a puppet of the West since his installation in the office in Bonn and now has the taint of election fraud ever be credible?

American diplomats are well aware of the dilemma: They have no choice but to put up with Karzai -- once the great hope of the US -- even though he's become part of the problem. The priority now is to find a short-term solution, said one high-ranking US representative. Karzai's obstinacy is making it impossible for Washington to forge a new strategy for Afghanistan, and the decision on US troop reinforcements is on hold until there is no doubt left about the future government of Afghanistan. "It can be Karzai for the time being," the official said. But in the medium-term, Afghanistan needs a new leader -- and there's a severe shortage of suitable candidates.

Part 2: Door Wide Open for Cheating in November

By contrast, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Monday evening that the US administration can't afford to postpone sending additional troops to Afghanistan until the government problem has been solved. But if Obama were to go ahead and get the reinforcements moving, he would have to explain why he wants to support a corrupt government.

US General Stanley McChrystal has asked Obama for 40,000 more soldiers. The US currently accounts for 32,000 of the total 68,000 ISAF soldiers and has an additional 33,000 troops outside the ISAF structure in Afghanistan. Most Afghans no longer see them as liberators but as an occupation force -- part of the reason why Washington is looking for a new strategy to regain the confidence of the Afghan population.

West Caught in Credibility Trap

Afghanistan has long since turned into a credibility trap for the West. The country urgently needs international assistance, especially from the West. If NATO were to withdraw and leave Afghanistan to fend for itself, as a number of NATO member states keep demanding, the West will have lost once and for all -- it would be a capitulation in the face of the Taliban and a sign to the world that you can conquer NATO with suicide attacks and guerrilla tactics.

Now, Karzai's forced agreement to the run-off presents both Afghans and international election-monitoring agencies with a new dilemma: Even if the election commission insists it is preparing for a run-off and has already begun printing the material needed for the second vote, the fact is that no money has yet been set aside for the vote. Almost all of the $300 million (€200 million) it cost to hold the first election came out of the pockets of the international community, and it's unclear whether that kind of money can be amassed by early November.

Likewise, critics question whether a second vote would be any less fraud-riddled than the first. They say there is nothing to prevent a repeat of hundreds of thousands of "phantom votes" -- individuals who have registered under several identities in order to be able to cast multiple votes -- from being counted as they were in the initial election. Moreover, independent observers will not be able to travel into those remote regions that auditors believe produced the majority of falsified votes. As one Western diplomat based in Kabul put it: "The door's also wide open in early November for the same kind of cheating."

The run-off also presents international troops with a gargantuan task. Even if they play just a supporting role while letting Afghan forces provide direct security for the polling stations, ISAF's soldiers will still have to overcome enormous logistical hurdles. Indeed, after the first vote, high-ranking officers said that NATO units would not help provide security were there a second round of voting. The topic will certainly be high on the agenda as NATO defense ministers gather in Bratislava later this week.

The US secretary of state told CNN on Tuesday that Karzai would likely come out on top in the second round of voting. "I think one can conclude," Clinton said, "that the likelihood of him winning a second round is probably pretty high."