Abdullah Abdullah, the main challenger to Hamid Karzai for the presidency of Afghanistan, has announced that he is withdrawing from the second round of voting due to be held on November 7 in what has become a widely discredited election.
The vote taking place next weekend comes after the first round held in August was beset by accusations of fraud, mostly directly at the Independent Election Commission in Afghanistan, a body headed up by Azizullah Ludin, which it is said is effectively working on behalf of the incumbent President Hamid Karzai.
As the
Wall Street Journal reports Dr. Abdullah, the former Foreign Minister of his country, is not actually withdrawing his candidacy, he is simply not taking part in a vote he does not believe will be "free and fair".
Nor has he told his supporters, he informed many of them of his decision to withdraw at a meeting in Kabul, to boycott the vote, declaring that come next Saturday they "will know what to do".
Knowing "what to do" says a spokesman for Dr. Abdullah apparently means not participating in the election, the
Wall Street Journal questioning how "not participating" differs from boycotting.
According to the
Guardian one possible consequence of Dr. Abdullah withdrawing from the second round of voting, which almost certainly guarantees victory for Mr Karzai, is that the decision of President Obama as to whether to send 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan will be made even more complicated. The U.S. wants to see a stable government in the Asian country before confirming if the extra troops are to be deployed.
Responding to Dr. Abdullah's withdrawal U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said of the decision by the 49-year-old politician, who has also practiced ophthalmology:
I don't think it has anything to do with the legitimacy of the election. It's a personal choice which may or may not be made
Speaking on behalf of Mr Karzai, who the U.N. declared was the recipient of one million fraudulent votes during the first ballot held in August, Wahid Omar said that Dr. Abdullah's decision was "very unfortunate" but would not affect the vote or the right of the Afghan people to participate in that vote.
In Western diplomatic circles some have suggested that, irrespective of the fraudulent votes, Mr Karzai received enough support to be declared the winner of the election. The cost of providing the security needed for the second round vote, which the Taliban has threatened to disrupt, may be one reason for such a view prevailing. And avoiding another vote is why Western officials have been pressing both Mr Karzai and Dr. Abdullah to come to some kind of compromise.
An official, the
Guardian does not indicate if the official is from the West or is an Afghan, said of efforts by Kai Eide, the senior U.N. representative in Afghanistan, to reach such a compromise:
Abdullah's demands were low – he would have taken a job as head of the constitutional reform committee in order to meet his campaign pledges. But Karzai wasn't interested
There are fears that a low turnout amongst voters on November 7 will further undermine Mr Karzai's legitimacy if, as expected, he emerges victorious.
A proposal to let the Supreme Court in Afghanistan decide who should be deemed the winner of the presidential election has been dismissed on the grounds that the court is as heavily pro-Karzai as the electoral commission.
Involving the
Jirga, an assembly of tribal elders and power brokers, in the decision is yet another idea that has been mooted.
Ultimately Dr. Abdullah seems set to claim a moral victory, if not an electoral victory, once the election process has been concluded, with one Western diplomat quoted as saying:
Whichever way you look at it, Karzai is not going to be a legitimate leader. He is soiled goods now and people don't know how the relationship is going to work with the international community in the coming year. The only person to have come out well is Abdullah, who has done a great job of elevating himself as a statesman on the international stage
