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Kerry Pushes for Solution to Afghanistan Election Crisis Kerry Pushes for Solution to Afghanistan Election Crisis
(about 11 hours later)
KABUL, Afghanistan — Secretary of State John Kerry began a series of meetings in Kabul on Friday in hopes of finding a way out of a presidential election crisis that has threatened to split the Afghan government and prompted Western officials to warn that Afghanistan risked losing billions of dollars in aid on which it depends. KABUL, Afghanistan — The Obama administration had hoped that after years of frustration with President Hamid Karzai, a successful election in Afghanistan would finally produce a leader who could stabilize the country while working with the United States to allow an orderly withdrawal of American troops and end its longest war.
Mr. Kerry arrived after midnight for the hastily arranged visit, landing in Kabul hours after a new United Nations proposal failed to bridge the divide between the two candidates, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani. Both have acknowledged the election was marred by widespread fraud, and yet each campaign has claimed victory, with Mr. Abdullah this week threatening to declare himself president if the allegations of vote-rigging were not adequately addressed. Yet nearly a month after a runoff election to choose Afghanistan’s next president, Secretary of State John Kerry arrived here on Friday for a hastily arranged visit aimed at resolving a crisis that began with allegations of widespread vote rigging. It now threatens to fracture Afghanistan’s fragile government as American-led combat troops are preparing to complete their withdrawal.
The prospect of Mr. Abdullah, who has the support of many powerful former warlords, attempting to seize power added a new layer of peril to the crisis. It raised the possibility of Afghanistan’s still fragile government and security forces fracturing, possibly along regional and ethnic lines, just as American-led combat forces are preparing to withdraw. Both candidates, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, have acknowledged that fraud marred the election, and yet each campaign has claimed victory, with Mr. Abdullah this week threatening to declare himself president, raising the specter of an ethnically and regionally divided Afghanistan.
Faced with the possible fracturing of a government the United States has spent billions to build and lost thousands of soldiers defending, the Obama administration this week began moving off its long-held position that the election was an issue for Afghans to work out among themselves. President Obama called both candidates following Mr. Abdullah’s warning, and Mr. Kerry added a stop to Afghanistan on a trip he was already making to Asia. “If Abdullah goes for it and declares himself president, forget it, this is over,” said a former Afghan official who remains close to many of Afghanistan’s top security officials. “Fighting the Taliban won’t even be an issue because who is going to do it? The army will be split. So will the police.”
Mr. Kerry’s first meeting on Friday was with Jan Kubis, the United Nations special envoy for Afghanistan. It was Mr. Kubis’s proposal, which called for a special of audit of votes from 8,000 polling stations, or about 43 percent of the ballots cast, that on Thursday failed to win the approval of the Abdullah campaign, which wanted 11,000 polling stations examined. Overshadowed by the events in Iraq, the swift deterioration of the political situation here has, in a matter of weeks, moved Afghanistan dangerously close to a situation far worse than that envisioned as likely by many American and Afghan officials before the election. Some Western officials have begun to warn that the crisis poses a greater immediate threat to the Afghan government than the Taliban.
Mr. Kerry then met President Hamid Karzai, who remains powerful and whose backing is crucial to any deal that could end the crisis. Though Mr. Karzai has sought to remain publicly above the fray, Afghan officials close to the president have said he has shaped the election process in the favor of Mr. Ghani, a longtime adviser and former finance minister. The Abdullah campaign has accused Mr. Karzai of rigging the election, which he denies. The prospect that Mr. Abdullah, who has the support of many powerful former warlords, might try to seize power prompted American and European officials to threaten in recent days that foreign troops could be pulled out and billions of dollars in essential aid lost if the crisis was not peacefully resolved. It also spurred the Obama administration this week to begin moving off its long-held position that the election was an issue for Afghans to work out among themselves, with President Obama calling both candidates and Mr. Kerry adding a stop to Afghanistan on a trip he was making to Asia.
Mr. Kerry is one of the few American officials with whom Mr. Karzai still enjoys a relatively warm relationship. But it is tainted by Mr. Karzai’s bitterness over the last presidential election, in 2009, during which he believes the United States tried to engineer his removal as president. The vote was similarly filled with fraud, and it was Mr. Kerry who convinced Mr. Karzai to agree to a runoff that year, which the Afghan leader saw as a humiliation. American officials said Friday that standing on the sidelines risked the possible fracturing of a government the United States has spent billions to build and lost thousands of soldiers to defend. Current and former Afghan officials concurred, stressing that a solution was still possible, but that time was running out.
Mr. Karzai’s challenger in 2009 was Mr. Abdullah, a former foreign minister who eventually dropped out of the race. And though American mediation had averted a crisis, it left both Mr. Karzai and Mr. Abdullah bitter and mistrustful of the United States over which each considered an American betrayal. Adding to the complications faced by Mr. Kerry, salvaging the Afghan election means working with the person the Obama administration is most eager to see gone: Mr. Karzai.
Mr. Kerry, who was also planning to meet on Friday with both candidates, would have to overcome those sentiments if he is to have any chance of brokering a solution to this year’s postelection dispute. But, at least in the case of Mr. Abdullah and his supporters, they see Mr. Kerry and the rest of the international community as their best case for a fair hearing. The Afghan leader remains powerful even as a lame duck, and his support is crucial to any deal that could end the crisis. Although Mr. Karzai has sought to remain publicly above the fray, Afghan officials close to him have said he has shaped the election process in favor of Mr. Ghani, a longtime adviser and former finance minister who held a commanding lead in preliminary results released on Monday.
“We want the international community to take action and we want real democracy,” said Mustafa Sattari, a doctoral student who was among a group of about 40 protesters, some of whom had formed a human chain blocking the entrance to Kabul’s airport on Friday. The Abdullah campaign has accused Mr. Karzai of rigging the election, a charge he denies.
Some of the protesters expressed frustration with democracy in general. “The last election was a mess and this one as well,” said Noor Azizi, 24, a marketing officer in a private company. Mr. Kerry is one of the few American officials with whom Mr. Karzai still enjoys a relatively warm relationship. Yet it is tainted by Mr. Karzai’s bitterness over the last presidential election, in 2009, during which he believes the United States tried to engineer his removal. That vote was similarly riddled with fraud, and it was Mr. Kerry who persuaded Mr. Karzai to agree to a runoff that year, which the Afghan leader saw as a humiliation.
Mr. Kerry, in brief comments to reporters ahead of his meeting with Mr. Kubis, seemed aware of the tough challenge he faced, cautioning that there was no guarantee of success. Mr. Karzai’s challenger in 2009 was Mr. Abdullah, a former foreign minister who eventually dropped out of the race. And though American mediation averted a crisis at the time, it left both Mr. Karzai and Mr. Abdullah mistrustful of the United States.
“The future potential of a transition hangs in the balance, so we have a lot of work to do,” he said. “But I can’t tell you that that’s going to be an automatic at this point.” Overcoming those sentiments is necessary for Mr. Kerry to have any chance of brokering an end to the crisis. But the United States has far less leverage than it did in 2009. After years of watching American officials fold after being rebuffed by Mr. Karzai, few here give much credence to American threats to pull out troops and cut aid. And each successive crisis over election fraud — this year’s is the third in five years, including the parliamentary elections in 2010 — has diminished the faith of many Afghans in the government erected by the United States.
Mr. Kubis added that the United Nations was searching for an election result “that strengthens stability and unity in the country, and not the other way around.” “The Americans have been here for 13 years, and what is the result? This system is a mess,” said Noor Azizi, 24, a marketing officer who was among about 40 protesters, some of them in a human chain blocking the entrance to Kabul’s airport on Friday.
The election crisis began almost as soon as voting ended in the June 14 runoff, with the Abdullah campaign alleging large-scale fraud in favor of Mr. Ghani, organizing protests and boycotting the tallying process. Mr. Ghani’s camp has also alleged fraud on part of Abdullah supporters, but with officials saying it was leading the vote, it has been far less vociferous in its protests. Another protester, Mustafa Sattari, a doctoral student, said, “We want the international community to take action, and we want real democracy.”
At the start of the week, the two sides were talking about an audit that would be acceptable to both. Then Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission announced preliminary results that confirmed what Afghan officials had been privately saying: Mr. Ghani had a commanding lead. Mr. Kerry met separately on Friday with Mr. Karzai, Mr. Abdullah and Mr. Ghani. The focus was on the technical aspects of the election process, specifically on seeking an audit of votes suspected to be fraudulent, an issue at the center of the deadlock.
The announcement was made over the objections of the Abdullah campaign and Western officials, and the lopsided results helped breathe new life into the crisis, cutting off direct talks between the candidates and leaving it to the United Nations and United States to intervene in hopes of finding a way out. A senior aide to Mr. Abdullah said that the candidate left his meeting with the sense he had finally gotten a fair hearing after weeks of being told by Western officials to respect a process he believes is irredeemably tainted in Mr. Ghani’s favor.
“There should not have been an announcement, and we made that clear,” a senior American official told reporters ahead of Mr. Kerry’s arrival. Mr. Kerry “listened to our proposals, and his reaction was, “These make sense,” said the aide, who had spoken with Mr. Abdullah about the meeting.
“I found him more optimistic,” the aide said of Mr. Abdullah. “Cautious, but not without hope.”
Supporters of Mr. Ghani were similarly positive after he met with Mr. Kerry. Daud Sultanzoy, a former presidential candidate who joined Mr. Ghani’s campaign in April, insisted that his candidate had won and that he had discussed ways of forming as inclusive a government as possible.
But Mr. Sultanzoy said that Mr. Ghani had reiterated to Mr. Kerry his opposition to a unity government with Mr. Abdullah, who has also said he is not interested in such an arrangement.
Despite the relative optimism, the gap between the candidates remained wide after Friday’s meetings.
Mr. Kerry, in comments to reporters on Friday morning, seemed aware of the tough challenge he faced, cautioning that there was no guarantee of success.
“The future potential of a transition hangs in the balance, so we have a lot of work to do,” he said before a meeting with Jan Kubis, the special United Nations envoy for Afghanistan.
The election crisis began almost as soon as voting ended in the June 14 runoff, with the Abdullah campaign alleging large-scale fraud that benefited Mr. Ghani. Mr. Ghani’s camp has accused Mr. Abdullah’s supporters of fraud, but with officials saying that Mr. Ghani is ahead, it has been far less vociferous.
At the start of the week, the two sides were talking about an audit that would be acceptable to both. Then Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission announced preliminary results that appeared to confirm what Afghan officials had been privately saying: Mr. Ghani was leading by roughly one million votes.
The announcement was made over the objections of the Abdullah campaign and Western officials, and the lopsided results helped breathe new life into the crisis, cutting off direct talks between the candidates.
The development also led powerful Abdullah supporters to start calling for him to seize power.
Mr. Abdullah “is in a very difficult position,” said the senior aide, who asked not to be identified so he could discuss internal campaign deliberations. “He has been under a lot of pressure from people who are saying you don’t have to trust the U.N., you don’t have to trust the U.S., remember what happened in the past.”