Karzai unlikely to claim Afghan election victory soon
Amid likely vote fraud, some experts now call for a coalition government or a return to the tribal system to clear the impasse.
Afghan men look on an election billboard of Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Kabul-Jalalabad highway, east of Kabul, Afghanistan on Sept 13.
Rahmat Gul / AP
Washington
In case there was any doubt before, the accusations of fraud piling up around Afghanistan's presidential election mean that Hamid Karzai won't be declared victorious in his reelection bid any time soon.
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At the very least, a national electoral complaints commission investigating fraudulent voting will take weeks to determine how much of Mr. Karzai's officially declared 54.6 percent of the vote will be tossed out.
At the other extreme, a potential need for a runoff vote could end up stretching Afghanistan's political turmoil into next spring – presenting President Obama and other NATO leaders with an unsettled and deteriorating climate just as crucial policy decisions are under review.
"This is the worst of all possible worlds for us," says Marvin Weinbaum, a former State Department intelligence specialist in Asian affairs now at the Middle East Institute in Washington. "We face a possible constitutional crisis that, if not resolved, becomes a disaster for us, and a partner [Karzai] acting in ways that in effect raise questions as to whether he should be in there or not."
With prospects growing for a period of months without a legitimate national leader, Afghan and foreign officials – Americans chief among them – are debating the options for salvaging a bad situation that could get much worse.
Aside from a runoff vote, which could be declared if investigations show Karzai's total falling below 50 percent, some parties are calling for a coalition government, while others support the idea of a nonpolitical transitional government.
That debate has crystallized in a row between foreign officials over the best way to address Afghanistan's political predicament. Peter Galbraith, a senior US official working in Kabul as the deputy special UN representative for Afghanistan, abruptly left the country after clashing with his boss, Kai Eide, over what path forward to advocate.
Mr. Galbraith favors a larger recount of votes, even if it leads to a runoff between Karzai and his main political rival, Abdullah Abdullah, and an extended period of political uncertainty.
