Afghans to Alter the Government

[Toramana]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/15/world/asia/anxious-moments-for-an-afghanistan-on-the-brink.html?_r=0

Anxious Moments for an Afghanistan on the Brink


KABUL, Afghanistan — It was the Germans who uttered the first alarm that a potentially deadly power struggle might be brewing, after weeks of Western officials’ staying on the sidelines as the Afghan election crisis deepened. Just over a week ago, they threatened to withdraw funding and training troops from Afghanistan if a powerful regional governor declared a breakaway government led by the presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah.

It was not long before the German concerns proved founded. Enraged by Afghan officials’ sudden announcement of suspicious preliminary results last Monday, the governor declared the breakaway government. And he was followed by similar declarations from other Abdullah supporters.

But as Western officials scrambled to respond, what was not being said aloud was that the Abdullah camp’s threats had already gone beyond talk to a plan of action. Some of Mr. Abdullah’s backers were preparing to take over the centers of government in at least three provinces, and on his word to march on and occupy the presidential palace, according to several of his supporters and former government officials.

What followed was as tumultuous a six-day stretch for Afghanistan as any since the American invasion in 2001. Interviews with Western officials, the two presidential campaigns and other Afghan officials detailed a week that went beyond any previous political crisis in carrying the risk of a factional conflict that would tear open the wounds of the devastating civil war.

Local mujahedeen commanders were urging action against the palace, expressing confidence that the Afghan security forces, including those guarding President Hamid Karzai, would not fire on them. The commanders believed that most of the security forces were sympathetic to Mr. Abdullah, and that Mr. Karzai would be loath to order guards to open fire.

“Our commanders say we do not need the palace key from the Election Commission, we can go and take it ourselves,” said Fazal Ahmad Manawi, a former supreme court judge and an election adviser to Mr. Abdullah. “If Dr. Abdullah had said yes, several provinces including the palace would have fallen into the hands of his team.”

According to Mr. Manawi and others, it was a call from President Obama to Mr. Abdullah just after dawn last Tuesday that helped stop a headlong rush into a disastrous power struggle. Mr. Obama warned Mr. Abdullah not to even consider seizing power and to keep calm over the three days until Secretary of State John Kerry could get to Kabul.

“Really here the U.S. government did a great favor to the Afghan people,” Mr. Manawi said. “If it was not for the telephone call to Dr. Abdullah, this would not have stopped.”

The American ambassador in Kabul, James B. Cunningham, would not directly confirm that American officials knew of the plan to march on the palace before Mr. Obama and Mr. Kerry reached out. But he did acknowledge an acute sense of urgency.

“The reason we intervened so rapidly was to urge them to stop even thinking about going down that road, which, I agree, would have been a disaster for the country,” Mr. Cunningham said in an interview with a small group of reporters. “It was serious enough that it engaged the president of the United States and the secretary of state, and that’s not an everyday occurrence.”

At a political rally the day of the call, Mr. Abdullah invoked the American warnings as he struggled to curb supporters who had begun to shout their demands for a march on the palace. Beginning to tear up, he urged patience, saying that Mr. Kerry would soon be in Afghanistan, and that they should wait to see what kind of agreement could be struck with his rival, Ashraf Ghani.

He was shouted down, and left the stage as the crowd’s yells heightened.

From the start, diplomats and election observers knew there were signs of large-scale fraud. After troubling reports from the first round of voting in April, things sharply escalated the day of the presidential runoff, June 14.

When the election commission announced a turnout of seven million that day, it was far higher than expected, and than plausible, given witness reports from polling stations around the country. The announcement was immediately suspicious not just to Mr. Abdullah, but to some international officials as well.

Over the next weeks, Mr. Abdullah pressed accusations of systemic election fraud, in which millions of false ballots had been arranged in a conspiracy that included Mr. Ghani’s campaign, national election officials and President Karzai himself. Mr. Ghani, for the most part, kept a studied silence other than to deny his opponent’s claims and reaffirm that he would abide by the election commission’s process.

Mr. Abdullah began unveiling evidence, including audio recordings of phone calls that his campaign officials said involved a senior election commissioner talking with staff members about stuffing ballot boxes. The commissioner resigned, but the electoral body mostly refused Mr. Abdullah’s other demands.

Then, last Monday, the Independent Election Commission announced preliminary results for the runoff, even as the candidates were still negotiating with the United Nations on a broader investigation of fraudulent ballots. They put Mr. Ghani more than a million votes ahead of Mr. Abdullah, and said the turnout was even greater than initially announced, at 8.1 million voters.

The announcement caught most by surprise. One diplomat in Kabul said it “torpedoed” the United Nations’ efforts to negotiate a deal, and left Mr. Abdullah “extremely vulnerable in his own camp.” The diplomat, along with some other officials interviewed about the crisis, spoke on the condition of anonymity.

As Mr. Abdullah’s supporters began agitating for action, the Germans sounded their note of alarm, followed by other Western officials. Then Mr. Obama stepped in, and a tense three-day countdown began until Mr. Kerry’s arrival.

Although Afghan officials were careful to say that they believed Mr. Abdullah did not personally want a call to arms on his behalf, he began publicly walking a very tenuous line. Even as he tried to calm his supporters, he also insisted that he would be found the rightful winner of the election. And he reserved the right to unilaterally declare a government if talks with Mr. Kerry did not satisfactorily address his accusations of fraud.

Mr. Kerry, whose flight arrived just before midnight, spent the first hours of Friday morning with Mr. Cunningham and other officials at the embassy discussing the situation and going over possible solutions, American officials said. “The outcome was not preordained,” Mr. Cunningham said. “There really was quite a deadlock when he arrived.”

After the meetings broke up around 3 a.m., Mr. Kerry and other officials slept a few hours before embarking on a crucial and harried schedule. It included direct meetings with Mr. Abdullah, Mr. Ghani and Mr. Karzai, and with other Afghan and Western officials.

Much of Friday was spent listening to the concerns of the Afghans. That night, Mr. Kerry huddled with American and United Nations officials to come up with a plan for the next day, which he would spend at the American Embassy, shuttling between the two camps in the embassy’s main meeting rooms in hopes of brokering a deal. Mr. Cunningham’s residence in the embassy’s upper floors were to be used for more private meetings.

Adding to the difficulty of the negotiations was that it was Ramadan, and the candidates and their entourages were observing dawn-to-dusk fasts for the Islamic holy month.

The negotiations on Saturday were most drawn out over the details of how to audit the runoff ballots, Mr. Manawi said. Mr. Abdullah was insisting that any box in which over 93 percent of the ballots were for one candidate should be reviewed. Mr. Ghani objected, eventually suggesting that they audit all the votes cast.

After that deal, officials said, the rest of the agreement was reached relatively easily, despite the fact that it included a sweeping plan to change the shape of the government over the next few years and to agree on a unity government in the shorter term after the results of the audit — and the election — are announced.

The winner will become president, and the runner-up, or somebody he nominates, will become a chief executive running the government. The security ministries will remain as they were for the first three months, Mr. Manawi said. The chief executive will serve for two years and the constitution will be amended to create an empowered prime minister post. The two election commissions will also be reformed.

Mr. Ghani and Mr. Abdullah were in the compound at the same time at multiple points during the day, Mr. Cunningham said. But American diplomats kept them apart “not because there was any danger that passing by each other they would cause any problem, but just because we were trying to keep the conversations separate until the very end.”

Once deals with both were secured, Mr. Cunningham said, “then we would ask them both to come together to ratify that, and that is, in fact, what happened.”

Mr. Abdullah made his final decision at the end of a dinner to break the daily Ramadan fast, known as an Iftar, that was held in the ambassador’s living room.

Mr. Ghani had by then left for an Iftar at his campaign office, which is nearby. “We asked him to come back,” Mr. Cunningham said, and the rivals sat together and agreed.

After weeks of intense bad feelings between their camps, Mr. Abdullah and Mr. Ghani embraced in the living room after striking the deal. They would do the same thing a short while later, at the end of news conference to announce their agreement to the Afghan people.

[Da Bannu Mazdigar]

Shared/Coalition formed Govt is not Good for a developing country,infact Abdullahx2 alone would be better than a coalition/shared type of govt

[Toramana]

US gets dream team in Kabul, almost
By M K Bhadrakumar

At first glance, the visit by the US Secretary of State John Kerry to Kabul in the weekend may appear to be a success. But Kerry himself didn't think so, and was alternatively joyful and moody in his assessment.

Kerry, in the presence of the Afghan candidates in the presidential runoff - Dr Abdullah Abdullah, former foreign minister, and Dr



Ashraf Ghani, former finance minister - listed four tangible gains from his talks:
He got both candidates to commit to participate in and abide by the results of a comprehensive audit of "every single ballot that was cast ... 100%, all 8 million".
The audit will be carried out in Kabul and will commence within 24 hours with the ISAF providing logistic and security underpinning.
The audit will be internationally supervised.
Both candidates agreed that the winner of the election will serve as president and will immediately form a "government of national unity".

Without doubt, this adds up to be a substantial diplomatic achievement and Kerry had every reason to be ebullient in presenting it to the world audience. However, soon afterward, in a second media event after meeting President Hamid Karzai, Kerry added the caveat:
This will be still a difficult road because there are important obligations of audit. There will be difficult choices that will be made. It will still require leadership and statesmanship from both of the candidates. But tonight, Afghanistan saw a moment of what unity can mean.
Kerry could sense that the "moment" he saw might prove ephemeral and the joy it imparted turn out to be transitory. In fact, some dissonant voices are already beginning to be heard in the opposing camps no sooner than Kerry took off from Kabul.

Again, the guarded dull unenthusiastic tone in which Karzai spoke to the media conveyed the impression that there are serious misgivings about what is unfolding - although he agreed to the pleas that the inauguration of the new president be deferred from the scheduled date of August 2 in view of the new exigencies.

Karzai gently sequestered himself from Kerry's visit and implied that it was at Washington's initiative. He disclosed that Washington has been keeping in touch with the two candidates all the while, contrary to the Obama administration's standoffish attitude publicly. Karzai said dryly,
As you witnessed on - they had a press conference, both brothers - our candidates, Dr Abdullah Abdullah and Dr Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai along with His Excellency John Kerry and [UN representative] Mr Jan Kubis at the - they had some announcements which I welcome ... and I hope that the 100% audit of the votes will take place and start as soon as possible so that the nation of Afghanistan finally elect their next president.
Karzai narrated how he had himself already taken necessary steps leading to the audit under the UN auspices in consultation with Abdullah and Ghani. (Significantly, in his remarks at the press conference with Kerry, Abdullah pointedly refrained from mentioning Karzai as having contributed to the agreements reached on Saturday.)

It stands to reason that nothing has been forgotten or forgiven by either side and a fresh contestation could be in the offing. Most certainly, Karzai could not have taken lightly in his stride the international monitoring of the presidential runoff, something he consistently opposed. In essence, Karzai has been reduced to the role of a bystander entrusted with the sole duty of scheduling the inaugural ceremony of the new president.

But Karzai is extremely sensitive about his presidential prerogatives as the elected leader of a sovereign country and has his own methods and style to assert them in due course. The hundred percent audit that Kerry has pledged - rather than an audit of disputed votes - is a big concession to Abdullah and will be seen by Karzai as signifying a supersession of his executive decisions so far in breaking the election deadlock.

At the very minimum, President Barack Obama's aides should have counseled him to put a phone call through to Karzai, given the way such things inevitably play out in the public perceptions in the Afghan bazaar. This isn't exactly how Karzai visualized the curtain formally coming down on his presidency.

In turn, this perceived slight could hold unpleasant surprises for the Obama administration. The fact remains that a very tricky period of several weeks lies ahead whilst the laborious prospect of weighing the credibility of each of 8 million votes gets under way and highly tendentious claims and counter-claims are bound to appear.

However, far more serious would be the rumor in the Afghan bazaar that Kerry might have asked Ghani to replace his vice-presidential running mate Ahmed Zia Massoud with the current vice-president Younus Qanooni. Massoud belongs, incidentally, to the Karzai camp.

If true, this is an ill-advised unwise move, as it amounts to interfering with the delicate balance of forces in the Panjshir Valley - the power base of Abdullah, Qanooni and Massoud - where the inheritance of the legacy of the late Ahmed Shah Massoud (who was assassinated by the al-Qaeda in 2001) still remains an unresolved issue, apart from reworking the alchemy of the Karzai-backed Pashtun coalition that backs Ghani, a Kuchi himself, who otherwise lacks a power base of his own.

However, personalities and vanity fairs apart, there is also a serious "systemic" issue here: What exactly is a "government of national unity" in the Afghan context? Kerry didn't spell out; nor the two candidates.

No doubt, a national unity government suits Afghanistan's needs today but the issue is, how to go about it. Once a fine comb is run through the recount ("audit") and a victor emerges beyond doubt as the legitimate elected leader, what is the need of a government of national unity? This is one thing.

Second, why should the victor who enjoys an unquestioned popular mandate share power? The then US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld drafted for Afghans a presidential system of government something like America's and in Washington no president ever 'shared' power with his vice-president.

Ghani or Abdullah will both insist that power flows though the barrel of the presidential gun. So, what does a "national unity" government amount to? Some Afghans say, it means "shared government" - whatever it means - while Abdullah flatly says it doesn't mean coalition government.

Abdullah's ally, Hazara leader Mohammed Mohaqiq had disclosed that what is on the anvil is an arrangement whereby the victor after the vote auditing will become the president, who, thereupon, will appoint the loser as the chief executive of his government, while within an year the Afghan constitution will be amended to create the post of a proper prime minister.

It all seems a slippery slope. As the standoff over the runoff shows, the entire impasse has been about power and the perks and privileges that go with it. There is no daylight possible between the respective campaigns of Ghani and Abdullah.

Arguably, the best course would have been that Karzai, who is a master coalition-builder, continued in power and formed a government of national unity comprising all segments of population cutting across the political spectrum.

All in all, therefore, it may be premature for Washington to celebrate that it may be getting, finally, a dream team in Kabul - a technocrat alongside a hardcore pro - while at the same time vanquishing Karzai. From the political landscape But then, this is Afghanistan and Kerry had reason to be wondering what he achieved.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India's ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).

[Toramana]

I want Herat, ComradePashtun, Tamim, Badlun, Khostai, and possibly Barakzai's etc. opinion on the article above from the New York Time. Is not the publishing of the article a deliberate act to pressure/force Karzai into staying away from the foreign supervision of the whole vote-recounting process and to be acquiescent to the foreign insertion of itself into the matter?

More shocking is the disclosure that security forces were ready to overrun the president's place. On few occasions might this have occurred in history that the army or police threatened to dethrone the sitting president and that also in countries with colonial legacies in terms of governance and security structures.

Armies have been the best tools of imperial-colonial powers in the neo-colonial era to effect changes they desire in the target countries. And the reason is simple. Armies are top-down structures centrally controlled that can be bought and won over. Democratic set-ups on the other hands may be unruly to handle and hard to buy.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

I want Herat, ComradePashtun, Tamim, Badlun, Khostai, and possibly Barakzai's etc. opinion on the article above from the New York Time. Is not the publishing of the article a deliberate act to pressure/force Karzai into staying away from the West's supervision of the whole vote-recounting process and to be acquiescent to the West's insertion of itself into the matter?

More shocking is the disclosure that security forces were ready to overrun the president's place. On few occasions might this have occurred in history that the army or police threatened to dethrone the sitting president and that also in countries with colonial legacies in terms of governance and security structures.

Armies have been the best tools of imperial-colonial powers in the neo-colonial era to effect changes they desire in the target countries. And the reason is simple. Armies are top-down structures centrally controlled that can be bought and won over. Democratic set-ups on the other hands may be unruly to handle and hard to buy.

Yes, you are correct about this. Karzai has his own personal agendas (some of them run inline with US interests and some of them do not). They prefer someone who will jump when told and jump how they want him to jump. He has some understanding, based on the fact that his uncle Habib Karzai used to be astute enough to keep one foot in the rural province and one foot in Kabul. He personally does not live like or prefer to live like some of the rurals or live their ground level value system, but he still understands it and has witnessed it. He however knows that to push the system too hard out in the agrarian community will create a big headache for him. He also understands some of the weaknesses of the rural/agrarian areas and uses that to his advantage, i.e. many locals will back their Khan type mentality as opposed to religious idealism.

They view Karzai as a PR disaster here States because Karzai has been catering to his own populace in rhetoric as well. This presents a problem for them because they want to be able to point to him and say "Look, he backs us, he agrees with us and says we are only doing good and doing right by Afghanistan."

He still does what they want him to do, or sets the stage for it to happen (e.g. Razzaq in power and so on and so forth), but he also preserves his own power base and wants a legacy.

And yes, the problem with these nations is that their militaries are beholden to outside interests. This is the case in Egypt, Pakistan, and so many other countries where the Military is too powerful or lacks civilian oversight.

They were trying to get Bismillah Khan Mohammadi to bypass Karzai for instance with respect to the BSA whereas Karzai preferred to use it as a bargaining tool.

What can one say, from the get go I have been telling you that the goal is to build New Pakistan next door to Pakistan. People here swore that the best way forward was to take all these arms and monies and quietly build one's self up into being a local player and power. The reality is the piper always collects and that the price of this approach is servitude.

[Tamim]

Bottom line, I think they pulled off the best kept secret in Afghan history, until Mohaqiq accidentally, or conveniently accidentally, spilled the secret of what will happen after the ballots are recounted

It appears that Dr² knew before hand of a plan to change Afghanistan's political system.

Until the US needed a dictator, they created an absolute president. As a transition. Now, they want to divide Afghanistan by giving everyone power, to an extent.

This ship is being steered by the US and it seems that all of this was planned from the elections of 2009 when Abdullah withdrew.

I was suspicious of how they were able to broker the deal so quickly with Kerry this time around.

I think Dr² knew about the overall plan, but I do not think others knew, hence why a sincere near all out war by the people.

Dr Abdullah needed to stir sentiment, and boy did he stir sentiment, just to created a raison d'etre for a constitutional reform.

It appears that Dr Ghani was upbeat because he would also hold office, because through fair elections, or US led influence, he would not have won.

I think what was supposed to happen, and I am being very cynical here, was that the US guaranteed Abdullah the win. Someone probably overheard this, or that there was clear instruction to have fraud in favour of Ghani. Then, Abdullah (probably discussed before hand) would cry foul, and create the grounds for a President/Prime Minister system.

From this it appears that the scapegoat is Karzai...they have blame him for the whole thing. To create legitimacy.

I think the US got the last laugh at Karzai's expense. I think that Karzai here is 100% innocent. He was not involved in these elections.

Now it all makes sense why both candidates agreed to sign the agreement with the US...an agreement that Karzai did not want to sign.

I feel that Karzai was trying to save Afghanistan from being ruled by the US via a permanent proxy.

Now it makes sense why Abdullah promised his people that victory is theirs. He needed to give some assurance in order to deter a civil disorder.

[Tamim]

It is pretty amazing considering that people were filming the fraud, and no one opposed to it.

Makes you think.

Makes you think further why Karzai-US relations got sour.

I just hope Dr² don't sell Afghanistan permanently.

[Toramana]

http://www.newser.com/article/d9f83883fef345f3bd8be2a6d8a93741/ap-interview-candidate-abdullah-says-us-brokered-deal-pulled-afghanistan-from-brink-of-crisis.html

AP INTERVIEW: Candidate Abdullah says US-brokered deal pulled Afghanistan from brink of crisis
AP INTERVIEW: Afghan hopeful credits US deal

By JOHN DANISZEWSKI | ASSOCIATED PRESS | 5 hours, 28 minutes ago in Politics

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Somber and reflective, Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah says his country was on the verge of a "very serious, serious situation" before he struck a U.S.-brokered deal with his rival to avert the crisis by holding a fully audited vote count.

The ex-foreign minister, who is in a deadlocked contest to succeed Hamid Karzai, told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday that he holds out hope that the outcome will bring Afghanistan closer to his vision of a country ruled by democratic institutions and laws.

"It's not like a win-lose situation, it's a sort of win-win situation," he said.

Asked about a published report that some supporters were ready to seize the presidential palace by force before the deal, because they feared the June 14 runoff was being decided fraudulently, he declined to discuss details.

"But it was a very serious, serious situation, not just in Kabul but throughout the country," said Abdullah, an opposition leader with strong support in northern Afghanistan, especially among the ethnic Tajik community and loyalists of the former Northern Alliance militia.

There already had been widespread reports that Abdullah was under pressure from angry backers to declare himself the victor in the contest against former finance minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, and that he was resisting their pressure. A report by the New York Times on Tuesday suggested the outlook for Afghanistan was even direr than publicly known — that Abdullah's backers were ready to march on the palace. Abdullah did not specifically deny the report.

The 53-year-old veteran of the movement that resisted the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in the 1990s and swept into Kabul after it allied with U.S. forces following the 9/11 attacks said he decided on the deal with Ahmadzai for an audited ballot return followed by a national unity government because "this was the right decision for the country, and for the future of the country."

But his demeanor indicated he is still bitter that many ballots may have been cast illegally for his opponent. "We didn't need this and we don't need this," said Abdullah, who has had experience of vote fraud before — he reluctantly conceded the 2009 presidential election to Karzai in spite of widespread reports of stuffed ballot boxes.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry swept into Afghanistan Friday to try to engineer a way out of the dispute, and by shortly before midnight on Saturday, the two candidates were at Kerry's side declaring they had found a way out of the deadlock.

Still, Afghanistan's serious challenges were underscored yet again Tuesday when a suicide car bomb exploded in Paktia province in a busy market near a mosque. Officials reported at least 89 killed, which would make it the largest single suicide attack since 2001, the year the Taliban fled the capital and later resumed a guerrilla campaign against the new Western-backed Afghan government.

"People were shocked and we are shocked, but this is the sad reality of Afghanistan," said Abdullah.

On a brighter note, he said he had just held his first meeting with Ahmadzai since the declaration of the political accord — "our first meeting one-on-one after quite a while." They embraced at Ahmadzai's home and Abdullah said he invited Ahmadzai to continue their planning at his home in two days.

He suggested that they would be able to work together, no matter whom the internationally supervised ballot audit eventually declares a winner.

"Before the elections, before both of us becoming candidates, we used to both of us get together to meet. We used to discuss issues," Abdullah said. He said they discussed how, together, they would "strengthen the trust of the people over the process."

Abdullah said the formula for the national unity government still needs to be worked out.

"I think now we have a better prospect for the future of this country. One is that the technical side, the votes of the people of Afghanistan, will be counted, will be audited — thoroughly — through ... an internationally supervised mechanism. That was the key for us because the legitimacy of the future government of Afghanistan is important."

"Then there is framework for cooperation between both sides in political terms — based on the agendas for reform for good governance, for strengthening the national unity, and so that is also good," he said.

"Hopefully everything will stay in the right track."

He confirmed that the agreement envisages, eventually, a constitutional grand council, or Loya Jirga, that could see Afghanistan switch to a parliamentary form of government with both a president and a prime minister.

"That has been our idea. This has been a part of our platform for many, many years," he said. "So that is something that will help Afghanistan, but it's a long way to go."

On the walls of an alcove of Abdullah's study were two portraits of his mentor and friend, Ahmad Shah Massoud, the charismatic Northern Alliance commander who was killed by al-Qaida assassins posing as journalists just before the 9/11 attacks. The road leading to Abdullah's house is closed to traffic for security, and soldiers and guards wearing the pakhool hats of the Northern Alliance fighters screened visitors carefully.

Abdullah said it has taken Afghanistan 13 years to reach a stage in nation-building that is still "a mess." He said Karzai had had better opportunities than any leader in Afghanistan's history — military backing, billions of dollars in support from the international community, and a sense of national consensus in the beginning.

"That opportunity was not utilized in the best way. I have no doubt that Afghanistan could have been a very different place."

But despite that, he said he has hope that it is not too late.

"There is an opportunity — that opportunity will not be there forever," he said. "We need to save Afghanistan."

[Shah-i-Kot]

I still want to know from those who supported the US/NATO war, what happened to your claim that US was going to stay forever?