KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai and his top rival for the office said over the weekend that they had ruled out a power-sharing deal before the runoff election.
Mr. Karzai’s announcement on Saturday appeared to reflect his confidence that he would win the Nov. 7 runoff handily and that there was no need to form a coalition with his rival, Abdullah Abdullah.
“We don’t want any coalition government before the election,” said Waheed Omar, spokesman for the Karzai campaign office. “We cannot make the vote of the people of Afghanistan and its Constitution take a back seat to political deal-making.”
Mr. Abdullah, speaking on CNN on Sunday, said he had “absolutely no interest” in a deal. “The people of Afghanistan should see the outcome of the runoff and get to work and see their government of choice in place,” he said.
While neither candidate has completely ruled out the possibility of a unity government after the runoff, a coalition would have political costs for both. For Mr. Karzai, who already has brought representatives from a number of constituencies into his fold, it would mean giving up political jobs to a rival instead of to his loyalists. For Mr. Abdullah, who has run on a government reform platform, it would mean being seen as part of the Karzai government and would potentially tarnish him in his supporters’ eyes.
However, the Americans and other Western members of the coalition fighting in Afghanistan have suggested that a unity government including the two top vote-getters in the first round would have more legitimacy than one led alone by Mr. Karzai, whose total vote count was reduced by nearly a million because of widespread fraud.
A coalition government would give the Americans and the Europeans some political cover for their continuing troop presence because they would be backing a government that had the support of a vast majority of Afghans.
If Mr. Karzai wins the second round, as expected, the international community will be likely to continue to back his government, which many Afghans say they believe has done too little to improve their lives and has failed to root out endemic corruption.
Mr. Abdullah has said he would not join a coalition with Mr. Karzai in large part because of their deep political differences.
“The difference in the character and the agenda of the two men makes it impossible,” said Mr. Abdullah’s deputy campaign manager, Salih Muhammed Registani. “We want change, we want the system to be changed.”
Mr. Abdullah’s most immediate concern is pushing the government to take steps to avoid a repeat of the fraud that marred the Aug. 20 election. He wants the head of the Independent Election Commission to be fired along with two other top commission officials who he says he believes were complicit in the fraud.
“So many people were involved in the fraud,” said Ahmad Wali Massoud, one of Mr. Abdullah’s advisers. “We have to get rid of people on the commission, otherwise we will be witnessing massive fraud again.”
Mr. Massoud said that changing about 200 local election officials, which the United Nations has said will be done, would have little impact.
Despite widespread perceptions of insecurity, students held a rally on Sunday at Kabul University calling for American troops to leave. The demonstration was held to protest an episode in Wardak Province in which international troops were said to have burned a Koran after their vehicle hit a bomb.
NATO-led forces strongly denied the charge and sent out a news release quoting the office of the governor of Wardak saying that the episode had been investigated and that American troops were not responsible.
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