Afghans got a new president on Sunday, following a bitter fight over the fraud-plagued runoff election on June 14. The outcome was a brokered political accommodation that was far from democratic, but it nonetheless set the stage for an important milestone: a transfer of power that gives the government a fighting chance of containing the Taliban and mending a nation scarred by decades of war.
Shortly before election officials declared Ashraf Ghani, a former finance minister and World Bank official, the winner, he and his rival, Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister, shared a tepid embrace at the presidential palace, where the two men signed a power-sharing agreement negotiated by the United States. Under the deal, Mr. Abdullah will assume a newly created post that will be similar to that of a prime minister. Supreme power will rest with the presidency.
The agreement appears to have narrowly averted, for now, further violence and a disastrous conclusion to America’s longest war. For the deal to hold, Mr. Abdullah and Mr. Ghani will have to formalize the details of an agreement that is subject to interpretation on many fronts. For instance, under the deal, the president will have to issue a decree outlining the specific administrative powers of the new position, according to the four-page document. The president also has final say over the scope of that position’s authority.
Mr. Ghani and Mr. Abdullah will also have to work to prevent some power brokers from undermining the compromise deal. Western officials rightly worry in particular about the governor of Balkh Province in the north, Atta Muhammad Noor, who was among those urging Mr. Abdullah not to concede.
The first sign of how rocky the path forward will likely be emerged just after the election commission pronounced Mr. Ghani the victor. The candidates had agreed, at Mr. Abdullah’s request, that election officials would announce the winner on Sunday but not the tally of audited votes. Mr. Abdullah had asked that the numbers be disclosed at a later date, believing that their immediate release would legitimize a hugely fraudulent process, possibly stoking unrest. But election officials leaked the results to Afghan media outlets anyway, giving the new governing partnership a bitter start.
At the end of the day, the millions of Afghan voters who defied Taliban threats to cast ballots are now left wondering if their votes counted. Mr. Ghani’s presidency was not, by any reasonable measure, the result of a fair and credible election. Even so, Secretary of State John Kerry and his team in Kabul deserve recognition for formulating a power-sharing plan that gave the Afghans a way out of a crisis that could easily have plunged the country into a disastrous cycle of violence. If it works, this will mark the first peaceful transfer of power in the country’s history.
Mr. Ghani’s victory will mark the end of the decade-long tenure of President Hamid Karzai, who was supported by Washington but whose years in power were tainted by tolerance of corruption and marked by growing antagonism toward Washington. His refusal to sign a bilateral agreement with the United States to allow a small international military contingent to remain in the country for a couple of years — a precondition for continued foreign aid — deepened anxiety in Afghanistan unnecessarily. Both Mr. Ghani and Mr. Abdullah support the agreement.
It is a relief to see Mr. Karzai hand over the reins of power. But the change of leadership in Kabul is dampened by serious concerns over whether the power-sharing deal will prove durable.
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