By RAY RIVERA
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s political crisis worsened on Thursday, as the winning candidates in September’s elections vowed to take their seats in the new Parliament on Sunday in defiance of a delay announced by President Hamid Karzai.
The declaration set up a potentially volatile showdown with the president, who announced on Wednesday that he would postpone the Parliament’s inauguration while a special court he appointed investigated allegations of fraud by losing candidates. Many of them are from Mr. Karzai’s political base in the heavily Pashtun south.
The winning candidates and several Afghan and international officials say the court has no jurisdiction, and Mr. Karzai’s opponents charge that the president is trying to engineer a more favorable outcome for himself.
There are growing concerns among diplomats, Afghan officials and candidates on all sides that the standoff could lead to violent protests and even open war between Afghanistan’s rival ethnic groups.
At a meeting at the Intercontinental Hotel here, more than 200 newly elected members of Parliament agreed in a public display of unity to open the new session on Sunday, with or without the president’s approval. If the government stopped them from entering the Parliament headquarters, they said, they would meet in the street or in a mosque.
“We don’t care about President Karzai’s decree about delaying the new Parliament, because this is totally against our national Constitution and against the election laws,” said the interim speaker of the new Parliament, Hajji Mohammad Sarwar Osmani, who is from Farah Province.
“Even if the government forces oppose us from going to the Parliament building,” he added, “those soldiers are also our sons, and we won’t arm wrestle with them. We will go to one of the big mosques in Kabul City or come to this hotel if the owner of the hotel lets us and start work of our new Parliament here.”
Naheed Farid, of Herat Province, the interim secretary of the body, said, “Maybe we’ll start in the street if we have to.”
The show of defiance by the incoming legislators not only heightened the prospect of a constitutional crisis, but also showed signs of ethnic fractures within the Parliament. Although 213 of the 249 elected members were at the meeting, it was not clear the extent to which the Pashtuns in the group would support the move. Some interviewed afterward said they would not attend the opening Sunday.
The members had already gathered at the hotel for a weeklong training session in preparation for what had been the expected inauguration on Sunday.
Mr. Osmani, who was named interim speaker by the members until a new speaker could be chosen after Parliament opened, said all of the attending members agreed. And throughout the two-and-a-half hour meeting, the only strong signal of dissent came when one member walked out near the end, later telling a reporter that he was too disturbed to talk.
Another member, Hajji Obaidullah, a new Pashtun member of Parliament from Oruzgan Province, said in an interview after the meeting that the winning candidates should wait for the special court to finish its work.
“Me, personally, I will not go to the Parliament on Sunday,” he said. “I will wait for the court’s decision.”
He said he thought 60 to 70 members, mainly Pashtuns, also believed that they should wait for Mr. Karzai to open the session.
“The reason why most of them said yes was because they were kind of under pressure or didn’t want to make any of their friends mad,” he said. “But the facts are something else, and you’ll see something different in one or two days.”
The uncertainty about what may happen on Sunday — whether the candidates’ efforts prompt riots or worse — is causing concern. One losing candidate who hopes for a new election predicted violence if the Parliament did not defer to Mr. Karzai.
“Warlordism will start again in this country,” said the former candidate, Abdul Hadi Safi, 49, a former Parliament member from Kapisa Province who lost his seat in September. “Because if these people do not believe in the president, in the courts and in Islam, then it’s better to start jihad against them.”
The question of whether Mr. Karzai will inaugurate the new Parliament has been brewing since election results were certified by separate commissions set up to run the elections and investigate complaints.
The commissions have the backing of the international community. But the Karzai administration, led by the attorney general, has appeared intent on overturning the results and forcing a new election, as well as indicting several members of the Independent Elections Commission, which ran the election, and the Elections Complaint Commission, which investigated voter irregularities.
The appointment of the special court last month added new fuel to the crisis.
The dispute is proving especially difficult for the international community in behind-the-scenes efforts to broker a deal. Establishing a stable, democratic government able to provide services across the country is a crucial steppingstone in the plan by the United States-led coalition forces to turn over responsibility for security of the country in 2014.
But for a government overrun by corruption and barely visible in many parts of the country, the electoral crisis is proving to be another step backward after the fraud-tainted presidential election in 2009, with no easy way to reverse course.
“Nobody wants to be on the wrong side,” meaning the losing side, said a Western diplomat in Kabul, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid offending Afghan politicians. “There has to be an outcome so nobody loses face.”
According to this diplomat, the most likely outcome will be some form of a limited recount, rather than an outright annulment.
“A general recount is unrealistic,” the diplomat said. “Karzai now talks about changing 30 seats. That will not give him the Parliament he hoped for, but it is enough to say he did not lose.”
But any form of recount is likely to cause more discord, particularly from those forced to give up their seats.
President Karzai, meanwhile, left for Russia on Thursday for talks on trade and counternarcotics efforts with President Dmitri A. Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin. His office issued no statements and did not return calls about the Parliament issue on Thursday.
Pashtuns, who make up more than 40 percent of the population, are not alone among the aggrieved parties but have been the most outspoken in complaining about the results. They lost 26 members, giving them only 94 out of 249 seats.
Before lunch on Thursday, the winning candidates formed three committees: one to deal with the media; one to negotiate with the government to provide security for Sunday when they begin their work; and one to urge the international community to pressure Mr. Karzai into accepting the election results.
“In this regard, we want America, the United Nations, human rights groups and the international community to rescue our country from this crisis,” Mr. Osmani, the interim speaker, said. “Otherwise no one will be able to prevent this from leading to a bigger crisis and violence.”
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