Stakes rise for Afghan runoff election
By: Julie Mason
Examiner White House Correspondent
October 26, 2009
Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s top political rival ruled out a power-sharing government and called for a “dramatic increase” in U.S. troops for the war-strafed country.
Abdullah Abdullah, the former Afghan foreign minister, faces Karzai in a Nov. 7 runoff brokered by U.S. officials after the August general election was pitted with vote fraud.
“I think I should rule it out,” Abdullah told “Fox News Sunday” of a prospective joint presidency with Karzai, as some have called for. “I’m ready to go for a runoff.”
Abdullah’s position, which echoes Karzai’s own stance, creates a new wrinkle for President Obama, who is close to announcing a new strategy for Afghanistan that is likely to include a troop increase of some kind.
A major concern for the White House is ensuring there is a stable government in place in Kabul to act as a partner. Persistent corruption has undermined the faith of the Afghan people in the Karzai government, making it harder for allied forces to develop their trust and support.
“This situation requires a sort of dramatic increase in the number of troops in order to stop it from further deteriorating and reversing it,” Abdullah said.
Karzai, widely favored to win the runoff, told CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” show that “we must have a second round” of voting.
“If we don’t do that, we’ll be insulting democracy,” he added.
Karzai won the first round with a 49 percent plurality. Abdullah was the second-place finisher with 32 percent.
More than 1 million ballots, or about one-fourth of the votes, were judged suspect by a United Nations-organized investigation.
Abdullah sidestepped a question on Fox about boycotting the elections if it appeared another fraud-heavy round of voting was imminent. He said he was hopeful the second round would be better.
“It will be a very serious situation if we are up against the same sorts of conditions that we went through in the first-round elections,” Abdullah said.
On CNN, Karzai said he also supported a troop increase. Obama is considering a request from Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, for about 40,000 more troops to run a strong counterinsurgency program.
There currently are about 68,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
In addition to deciding how to proceed and what kind of strategy and troop commitment to endorse, Obama is facing pressure from the calendar.
Just days after the Nov. 7 runoff, Obama is set to go on a 10-day trip to Asia. Outside pressure is mounting for the president to make his plans known quickly — and certainly before his Asia trip.
Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, appearing on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” said Obama should not wait until after the runoff to announce his plans.
“Every day we delay will be a delay in this strategy succeeding,” McCain said. “General McChrystal has stated that the situation is deteriorating. So it argues for as rapid a decision as possible, and move forward.”
