Kerry pushes Afghan runoff

Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, has played a mediating role since he arrived in Kabul on Friday. He met with opposition candidate Abdullah Abdullah and had a meeting and two meals with Karzai, delaying his flight to Pakistan yesterday until well past midnight because their talks lasted longer than expected, aides said.

But it was unclear last night whether Kerry was able to persuade the Afghan leader to accept the results of an election complaints investigation, which called for a runoff election between Karzai and Abdullah, his top challenger.

“Kerry has met with Karzai a number of times, including for an hour and half tonight, looking to find a way forward that would legitimize the elections and empower effective government,’’ said Kerry’s spokesman, Frederick Jones.

Aides said Kerry’s message in private to Karzai echoed his public remarks, aired by CNN yesterday, that Karzai should accept the Electoral Complaints Commission ruling and that President Obama should wait until Afghan leaders resolve the crisis before sending more troops to bolster the Afghan government.

“It would be entirely irresponsible for the president of the United States to commit more troops to this country, when we don’t even have an election finished and know who the president is and what kind of government we’re working with,’’ Kerry said on CNN in a taped interview from Kabul aired yesterday morning.

The remarks, which were similar to statements made yesterday by White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, suggest that the crisis over the election is factoring heavily in Obama’s decision about whether to send an additional 40,000 troops to Afghanistan, as his top general, General Stanley McChrystal, has requested.

The election crisis has made a difficult situation in Afghanistan worse, raising the specter that US troops could be making sacrifices to defend a government that secured its authority through an election marred by massive vote-rigging.

Karzai, who has led the Afghan nation since shortly after the US military toppled the Taliban in 2001, was initially declared the outright winner of the Aug. 20 election, with 54 percent of the votes, by a seven-member Independent Elections Commission, which Karzai appointed. His closest challenger, Abdullah, a former foreign minister, was reported to have received 28 percent.

But widespread allegations of election fraud led the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission to throw out roughly 7 percent of the ballots, giving Karzai just 47 percent of the total vote, according to Western diplomats.

Under the Afghan constitution, a runoff election is required if no candidate wins more than 50 percent.

The results of the complaints commission investigation were expected to be officially announced this weekend. But Karzai has not agreed to accept a runoff, leading to a flurry of behind-the-scenes negotiation to try to resolve the standoff.

In addition to Kerry, Zalmay Khalilzad, a former US ambassador to Afghanistan, has been meeting with Afghan leaders to try to negotiate a settlement, which officials said could involve Abdullah Abdullah conceding defeat in exchange for a senior post in Karzai’s government.

Yesterday, Emanuel told CNN: “There are two options: a runoff between the two top candidates or a negotiation. The end result must be a legitimate and credible government that the Afghan people view as valid.’’

The fraud allegations have stirred turmoil not only for the Afghan government, but for the United Nations. Peter Galbraith, the deputy to Kai Eide, the top UN official in Afghanistan, was dismissed a month ago after accusing his boss of sweeping election fraud under the rug. A week ago, one of two Afghan members of the complaints commission resigned, alleging unfairness from the three international members.

Another potential source of controversy lies in the fact that the complaints commission used mathematical extrapolations to try to determine what percentage of votes Karzai legitimately received, according to J. Alexander Thier, director for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the US Institute of Peace.

“I think it is a statistically sound method, but it is the type of thing that is very susceptible to criticism,’’ Thier said. But he said Karzai thinks he would have won by a wide margin even if none of his supporters stuffed ballot boxes.

Still, the election crisis has grown so serious that many believe a runoff is necessary to restore faith in the process, both for Afghans and for Americans who are reluctant to send more troops and more money there.

“If we can have a runoff and get a decent turnout, that would be a way to put legitimacy back into the government,’’ said Representative John Tierney, a Salem Democrat who is slated to speak about Afghanistan at a roundtable at Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy today.

A Western diplomat who closely follows Afghanistan said Kerry’s meetings were a part of an overall effort to prevent the situation from unraveling further.

“A lot of people in Kabul at the moment are trying to work with all sides to promote the adherence to the process,’’ said the diplomat, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation. “Plan A is always going to be adherence to the Constitution, but Plan B has to be, after all of this, something that is acceptable to the Afghans.

Kerry closely coordinated his negotiations with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Richard Holbrooke, the president’s special representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan; and US Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry.

On Friday, Kerry dined with troops from Massachusetts in Kabul. Yesterday, he visited Marines in the war-torn Helmand Province and held a shura, or traditional meeting, with 275 elders.