KABUL: As the one-year countdown to Afghan elections begins, the man who lost out last time in a corrupt and chaotic poll is weighing up whether to risk another shot at the presidency.
Abdullah Abdullah pulled out of the second round of the 2009 election after massive vote-rigging by President Hamid Karzai’s supporters that badly shook the US-led international effort to rebuild Afghanistan.
The next election is due on April 5, 2014, but many doubt it will be held on schedule. There are no front-runners and foreign donors fear another flawed poll could bury gains secured since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
Abdullah, an urbane former eye surgeon, remains embittered towards Karzai and doubts the president will step down without a fight -- despite the fact he is barred from standing for a third term.
He accuses Karzai, 55, of plotting to deceive the electorate in spite of repeated pledges to step down next year.
“President Karzai will make an effort to extend his tenure,” the 52-year-old predicted in an interview at his heavily-guarded private residence in Kabul. “The president’s best option is to create an emergency security situation so everyone says ‘under these circumstances how can we have elections?’, then he calls a jirga (tribal meeting) to support him staying on,” Abdullah said. “He doesn’t show any signs of being someone who is now leaving in one year’s time.”
Abdullah served as Karzai’s foreign minister from 2001 to 2005, but is now leader of the National Coalition of Afghanistan, the closest thing to an opposition group in a country where central government is traditionally weak.
A former aide to the late anti-Soviet fighter Ahmad Shah Massoud, Abdullah commands support among minority Tajiks but not the Pashtuns, the dominant ethnic group from which Karzai and most members of the Taliban hail. Recalling the turbulent 2009 election, Abdullah said he was wary of campaigning again for the presidency.
AFP
