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As Ballots Are Counted, Deadly Clash Kills Four in Afghanistan Afghan President, in Reversal, Backs U.N. Role to Settle Election Dispute
(about 7 hours later)
KABUL, Afghanistan — A clash between the Afghan police and security guards loyal to a prominent governor turned deadly on Friday, claiming the lives of at least four people. Though the root cause was not immediately clear, there were signs that the two sides were allied with rival presidential candidates, raising the specter of wider political bloodshed. KABUL, Afghanistan — Seeking to quell a political crisis surrounding the June 14 election to choose his successor, President Hamid Karzai reversed course on Friday and suggested that the United Nations get involved in helping Afghanistan settle disputes over the voting.
The clash occurred Friday morning on the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif, a northern city that has been a stronghold of Abdullah Abdullah, one of the two candidates in the presidential runoff election conducted on June 14. The ballots in that election are still being counted, but Mr. Abdullah is boycotting the process because of allegations of widespread fraud. In a meeting with Jan Kubis, the U.N.'s special envoy for the country, Mr. Karzai said the involvement of the international organization would be “a good step toward ending the problems, because any organization that can help Afghanistan in this issue is appreciated,” according to a statement from his office.
The gun battle that erupted on Friday was fought between armed men in police uniforms and the guards of Juma Khan Hamdard, the governor of Paktia Province, who supports Mr. Abdullah’s rival in the election, Ashraf Ghani. Until now, Mr. Karzai has dismissed any suggestion that Afghanistan needed help running the election, and said that foreigners should stay out of the country’s politics.
The two candidates appeared to be locked in a tight race, and protests over the vote-counting have begun to crop up across the country. A few hundred people gathered in large tents across Kabul on Friday, prompting a number of organizations, including the United Nations, to urge employees to limit their travel in case the demonstrations turn violent. The June 14 election, whose ballots are still being counted, was a runoff between Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister who won the most votes in the first round in April, and Ashraf Ghani, who placed a distant second in that balloting. Mr. Abdullah’s followers say early tallies showed suspicious vote totals in the runoff in areas where Mr. Ghani is popular, and raised allegations of widespread fraud. Mr. Abdullah has accused the Independent Election Commission of colluding with Mr. Ghani and Mr. Karzai to steal the election from him, and has boycotted the vote-counting and adjudication process.
The two sides in the gun battle exchanged fire for an hour and a half, according to a spokesman for Mr. Hamdard. Four of Mr. Hamdard’s guards were killed and three wounded, the spokesman said. His stance has threatened to derail the election, a make-or-break moment for Afghanistan as foreign troops prepare to depart by the end of the year. Thousands of Mr. Abdullah’s supporters plan to stage demonstrations across the country against the electoral commission, raising fears that the protests might devolve into violence that could break along ethnic lines.
It was not clear who fired first, or whether there were police casualties. Mr. Abdullah had suggested earlier in the week that a resolution to the crisis might involve the United Nations, a notion that was quickly shot down by the international organization. The United States, once intricately involved in the day-to-day running of Afghanistan, has also made clear that the dispute should be sorted out by Afghans.
“We are currently investigating how and why this incident happened,” said Abdul Rahman Rahimi, the police chief of Balkh Province, where Mazar-i-Sharif is. “Right now, we can’t say, because our investigation is underway.” But Mr. Karzai’s comments revived the possibility that the international community might once more have a hand in the selection of a new leader for Afghanistan.
Mr. Hamdard is a former warlord who fought in the north during the civil war in the early 1990s. His spokesman said he was traveling from one of his homes in the area back to Kabul when the fight erupted, and that he managed to escape the scene unhurt. “We note the comments made by presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah about a potential United Nations role, as well as those of President Karzai today,” said Ari Gaitanis, the United Nations spokesman in Afghanistan. “At the request of the parties, the United Nations stands ready to help facilitate an Afghan-led process in which both parties will cooperate, and we would need to hear more details about any proposal.”
He and the governor of Balkh, Atta Muhammad Noor, are bitter rivals, since the civil war, though both have managed to secure highly influential positions in the Afghan government. Mr. Noor is an ardent supporter of Mr. Abdullah in the election. For years, Mr. Karzai derided the West for meddling in Afghan affairs, and he fought to keep foreign representatives off the country’s electoral complaints commission, which adjudicates complaints of fraud, arguing that it would be a violation of Afghan sovereignty for them to take part.
The violence added to tensions that were already mounting in Kabul after Mr. Abdullah announced that he no longer believed the country’s electoral system would deliver a credible result. Protests have started to take place in the city, with groups of a few hundred students calling for an end to electoral fraud and, in some cases, for Mr. Abdullah to be declared the outright victor. He has also taken the American-led coalition forces to task over civilian casualties, assailed his Western allies in terms similar to Taliban rhetoric, and refused to sign a security agreement with the United States that his aides had negotiated.
At one protest site, Abdullah supporters shouted slogans that translate roughly as “Death to the Election Commission.” Blue curtains hung from the edges of the protesters’ tent; people there said the color blue was meant to represent victory. In some respects, it was the international community’s involvement in the last presidential election in 2009 that first soured the relationship. Mr. Karzai at first claimed to have won outright in the first round, but the United States pressured him into acceding to a runoff against Mr. Abdullah after evidence surfaced of pervasive fraud.
Mr. Abdullah led Mr. Ghani by a wide margin in the first round of voting, but he and his supporters say that their early tabulations of the runoff show an unexplained surge of Ghani votes, and they assert that there has been large-scale fraud, especially in areas where Mr. Ghani is popular. After having pushed issues to the brink of rupture many times, Mr. Karzai appeared on Friday to be trying to pull others back from the brink. Some officials in Kabul greeted the change of tack with suspicion, and the State Department reacted cautiously.
They have not publicly produced evidence to back the claim, however, and with the vote counting still underway, the objections raised by the protesters seemed to be stoked more by emotion than fact. “We need a clearer understanding of these proposals,” Jen Psaki, a State Department spokeswoman, said in a statement. “We continue to urge all candidates to work through the legally established Afghan mechanisms to resolve allegations of fraud and misconduct.”
“As you know, we had more votes than our rival candidate in the first round, but all of a sudden he is on lead,” said Mohammad Ali Resalat, 24, a protester. “It is very obvious that the scales of fraudulent votes are very high. We want to protect our rights hence the commissions have to act impartially and remove all of the fraudulent votes and announce us victorious.” For his part, Mr. Ghani welcomed the idea.
Mr. Abdullah has called for at least one high-ranking official in the Independent Election Commission to be suspended because of allegations of perpetrating fraud, but the commission has refused. “We don’t have any problem with the United Nations conducting an investigation of the votes,” said Seddiq Patman, a spokesman for Mr. Ghani. “Any neutral organization that wants to investigate in this regard is welcomed by us.”
After initially suggesting that the United Nations step in to oversee the vote-counting process, Mr. Abdullah has backed away from that idea, and the United Nations responded with a blunt statement urging both candidates to stick with the existing process. It was not clear whether Afghan law would support any plan for U.N. involvement that would circumvent the electoral system, but given that Mr. Abdullah had already essentially repudiated the system, the distinction hardly seemed to matter.
Mr. Abdullah has also accused President Hamid Karzai of being complicit in election fraud. Mr. Karzai defeated Mr. Abdullah in the 2009 presidential election, which was marred by fraud. Perhaps more pertinent was whether Mr. Abdullah would accept a United Nations role as a solution to the impasse.
But Mr. Karzai said in a statement late Friday that he supported Mr. Abdullah’s demands and would even accept United Nations involvement, apparently reversing his previous stance that the international community should stay out of the Afghan elections. “What is important for us is that the process must be given some credibility and legitimacy,” said Wahid Omar, a senior adviser to the Abdullah campaign. He added, “Dr. Abdullah is planning to meet with Jan Kubis to talk about the process.”
“Mr. Karzai not only accepts the demands of Mr. Abdullah but considers it a step towards ending the problem,” a statement from the presidential palace that was issued after Mr. Karzai met with the top United Nations official in Afghanistan said. “Any organization that can help Afghanistan in this issue is appreciated, and we welcome it.” The prospect of street protests by Mr. Abdullah’s supporters remained on Friday, with at least one major road blocked by large tents and several hundred protesters. Mr. Abdullah’s campaign officials said senior leaders were not involved in organizing the protests and were unsure whether they would materialize. But late on Friday, the Facebook page of one of Mr. Abdullah’s vice-presidential running mates exhorted followers to turn out for protests Saturday morning.
Adding to the pressure, Barna Salihi, a provincial election official in Takhar, an Abdullah stronghold, resigned his post on Friday, saying “the election commission did not pay attention to the demands of a certain candidate, and this may lead the country in to a crisis.” He said that with one side boycotting the vote-counting process, “my work would be meaningless.” Afghan and Western officials worried that the protests could get out of hand and turn violent.
“It’s legitimate to protest — the thing is, they know they cannot control it,” Thomas Ruttig, a researcher with the Afghan Analysts Network, said of the Abdullah campaign. “There are so many arms around in the country. It can escalate.”
Mr. Abdullah is identified with the country’s Tajik minority, while Mr. Ghani is associated more with the Pashtuns, the largest group in the population, but both candidates have fielded ethnically balanced tickets. Both men have also called on followers to remain peaceful, but that may be unraveling in some places.
A clash between Afghan police and security guards loyal to a prominent governor turned deadly on Friday, claiming the lives of at least four people. Though the root cause of the violence was not immediately clear, there were signs that the combatants were allied with opposite camps in the election, raising the specter of wider political bloodshed.
The clash occurred Friday morning on the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif, a northern city that is a stronghold of Mr. Abdullah. The gun battle was fought between armed men in police uniforms and the guards of Juma Khan Hamdard, the governor of Paktia Province, who supports Mr. Ghani.