Under heavy international pressure, President Hamid Karzai conceded Tuesday that he fell short of a first-round victory in the nation’s disputed presidential election, and agreed to hold a runoff election with his top challenger on Nov. 7.
Flanked at a news conference in Kabul by Senator John Kerry, the head of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Kai Eide, the top United Nations official in Afghanistan, Mr. Karzai said he would accept the findings of an international audit that stripped him of nearly one third of his votes in the first round, leaving him below the 50 percent threshold that would have allowed him to avoid a runoff and declare victory over his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah.
President Obama praised Karzai’s decision to acknowledge the fraud finding and participate in a runoff, calling it “an important step forward in ensuring a credible process for the Afghan people which results in a government that reflects their will.”
“I congratulate the Afghan people on the patience and resilience they have shown throughout this long election process,” Obama said in a White House statement issued Tuesday morning. ” . . . [I]t is a testimony to the bravery of the Afghan people that so many of them did come out to vote in the first round under tremendously difficult circumstances.”
“I hope that the international community and the Afghan government and all others concerned will take every possible measure to provide security to the people so that when they vote that vote is not called a fraud,” Karzai said.
Shortly before the press conference, the chairman of the Independent Election Commission, Azizullah Lodin, said the commission, which organized the Aug. 20 vote, did not want to “leave the people of Afghanistan in uncertainty” any longer.
“The commission is agreed to go to a second round and say that nobody got more than 50 percent,” Lodin said. Afghan electoral law says a runoff is needed if no candidate gets above that percentage.
Karzai’s decision was immediately hailed by U.S. Sen. John Kerry, one of several Western representatives who appeared alongside the Afghan president at Tuesday’s delayed news conference.
Kerry, who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Karzai’s decision to participate in the runoff “will allow the national leadership to govern with legitimacy.”
“We believe with this decision by the president today that a time of enormous uncertainty has been transformed into a great opportunity,” Kerry said.
The Faster Read: If Karzai looses, Kerry promised to take him kitesurfing in the Vineyard.
Image via KarlMarx.
