US secretary of state John Kerry began a series of meetings in Kabul yesterday in the hopes of finding a way out of a presidential election crisis that has threatened to split the Afghan government and prompted western officials to warn that Afghanistan risked losing billions of dollars in aid on which it depends.
Mr Kerry arrived after midnight for the hastily arranged visit, landing in Kabul hours after a new UN proposal failed to bridge the divide between the two candidates, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai.
Both have acknowledged the election was marred by widespread fraud, and yet each campaign has claimed victory, with Mr Abdullah this week threatening to declare himself president if the allegations of vote-rigging were not adequately addressed.
The prospect of Mr Abdullah, who has the support of many former warlords, attempting to seize power added a new layer of peril to the crisis.
Fragile government
It raised the possibility of Afghanistan’s fragile government and security forces fracturing, possibly along regional and ethnic lines, just as US-led forces are preparing to withdraw.
Faced with the possible fracturing of a government the US has spent billions to build and lost thousands of soldiers defending, the Obama administration this week began moving off its long-held position that the election was an issue for Afghans to work out among themselves. US president Barack Obama called both candidates following Mr Abdullah's warning, and Mr Kerry added a stop to Afghanistan on a trip he was already making to Asia.
Mr Kerry's first meeting was with UN special envoy for Afghanistan Jan Kubis. Mr Kubis's proposal for an audit of votes from 8,000 polling stations on Thursday failed to win the approval of the Abdullah campaign, which wanted 11,000 stations examined.
Mr Kerry then met Afghan president Hamid Karzai, who remains powerful and whose backing is crucial to any deal that could end the crisis.
Though Mr Karzai has sought to remain publicly above the fray, Afghan officials have said he has shaped the election process in the favour of Mr Ahmadzai, a longtime adviser and former finance minister. – (New York Times service)