Abdullah Abdullah withdrew from Afghanistan’s Nov. 7 presidential run-off election against Hamid Karzai, saying a “free and fair” ballot wouldn’t have been possible.
He urged his supporters “not to take to the streets” or demonstrate in two Kabul press conferences today broadcast by international networks including CNN. The former Afghan foreign minister said he was “absolutely not” calling for a boycott of the run-off.
“The Afghan people deserve a better election” than the one that would have occurred, Abdullah said. He said the cost and potential violence connected with staging a second round were among his considerations in dropping out.
“I will pursue my efforts to bring reform and change to this country for the rest of my life,” said Abdullah, who was born in 1960. “I will do my best to institutionalize democracy in Afghanistan. Our commitment is much deeper than what happens today or tomorrow.”
The run-off election will proceed as scheduled, the election commission said today after Abdullah’s announcement, Agence France-Presse reported.
Abdullah said he had consulted in recent weeks with U.S. President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. John Kerry as well as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
‘Democratic Process’
He said he took his decision to quit the election after a meeting last week with Karzai, 51, when the president ruled out dismissing the head of the election commission or meeting other demands Abdullah said were required to improve the fairness of the second-round ballot.
The next step must be to bring the electoral process to a conclusion in a “legal and timely” manner, United Nations Special Representative, Kai Eide, said in an e-mailed statement.
U.K. Prime Minister Brown said in an e-mailed statement that he is “confident” that Afghanistan’s leaders will support “the remaining steps of the democratic process.
“We hope to see an Afghan government emerge that responds to the will of the people, that reaches out to all parts of Afghan society, and that is ready to take strong action to meet the challenges that Afghanistan faces,” Brown said.
A UN-backed partial recount of the initial Aug. 20 vote found more than 1 million ballots, most of them for Karzai, were suspect, putting his tally below the 50 percent needed to win and triggering the run-off.
Fraud Allegations
More than 200 of the 380 district election coordinators were fired for complicity in first-round fraud, and polling stations where irregularities occurred wouldn’t re-open, Aleem Siddique, a spokesman for the UN mission in Afghanistan said in a telephone interview on Oct. 21.
Most allegations of fraud in August came from violence- prone areas in the nation’s south and southeast, where Karzai’s political base is.
Allegations of voting fraud have complicated the Obama administration’s decision on whether to increase the number of troops in Afghanistan beyond the extra 21,000 the president approved earlier this year. About 68,000 troops are in Afghanistan today, the administration’s current goal, according to Pentagon data.
Abdullah today said there is “no doubt” that more U.S. and NATO forces are needed to suppress the Taliban and stabilize his nation, though more than soldiers will be required for that task, he added.
The UN said on Oct. 29 it was reviewing security in Afghanistan after Taliban militants raided a Kabul guesthouse and killed five UN workers a day before in a bid to disrupt the elections.
Taliban militants threatened more attacks in the country and “will not allow the second round to pass off peacefully,” spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi told AFP. The militants will ensure that the elections are a “failure,” according to AFP.
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