‘Brick Wall' Feared in Afghan Election

KABUL, Oct. 17 -- There is a growing fear among Western officials in Afghanistan that President Hamid Karzai and the nation's Independent Election Commission will not accept the findings of a United Nations-backed fraud investigation that is expected to call for a runoff to settle Afghanistan's disputed presidential election.

Such a decision by Karzai would deepen Afghanistan's political crisis and leave no clear method for resolving the allegations of massive fraud that have undermined the credibility of the election, which was held nearly two months ago. It would also be a setback for the Obama administration, which has urged the candidates to follow the electoral process to yield a legitimate winner.

"That's the brick wall," said one Western official in Kabul familiar with the process. "It's going to be quite chaotic and confusing."

After an audit of suspicious votes and an investigation into the most serious complaints, the U.N.-supported Electoral Complaints Commission found that the number of votes that must be discarded would drop Karzai below the 50 percent majority needed to claim victory, according to officials familiar with the process. The public announcement of the commission's findings may come Sunday, officials said.

But Karzai's office has accused the complaints commission of bowing to foreign interference and politicizing its work, aiding his opponent, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah. Preliminary results of the Aug. 20 election gave Karzai 54.6 percent of the vote. Abdullah received 28 percent. The Independent Election Commission, an Afghan body that many say is heavily influenced by Karzai, has disputed the methodology used during the fraud investigation, according to officials involved.

The election commission is "going to act on the orders of the president," said the Western official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. "The worst thing you could have is the president to reject the process that the international community has been hailing."

A range of current and former U.S. and international officials have met with the candidates in recent days to attempt to negotiate a resolution to the crisis. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), along with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, were in Kabul discussing the issue. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Abdullah on Friday night. Former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, who has met with Abdullah and Karzai in recent days, said Friday that he "urged them to recognize the gravity of the circumstances and rise to the occasion."

Abdullah said he was open to preliminary discussions to form some type of coalition government with Karzai but only after a runoff had been scheduled. On Saturday, he convened a gathering of parliament members and other supporters in Kabul to discuss his options.

Karzai, meanwhile, maintains that he won the election, and some officials don't think he'll make concessions. One question is whether Karzai's intransigence is a negotiating tactic aimed at a better bargaining position or whether he intends to derail the process by rejecting the complaints commission's work.

"Obviously he's not happy about this and doesn't like it," said another Western official in Kabul. But it remains unclear "whether he's going to get himself involved in the middle of that or let the process work itself out."

Special correspondent Javed Hamdard contributed to this report.