The first round of the election, on April 5, was widely seen as a success. Since the vote margins were large, the review for ballot stuffing and other fraud was quick and pro-forma. Provincial council results escaped scrutiny.
After the second round election on June 14, with large gains for Ashraf Ghani, the Abdullah Abdullah campaign walked away from the election process. Abdullah supporters, such as Atta Muhammad Noor, Governor of Balkh, had bluntly threatened civil war.
John Kerry flew to Kabul in July, and negotiated an agreement between the candidates. The agreement created a large sense of relief. But the agreement quickly turned into squabbles about the details, both about the vote audit, and a plan to restructure the Afghan government.
John Kerry again flew to Kabul last week. He negotiated an agreement to agree to the previous agreement.
Secretary of State John Kerry visited last week and persuaded the two candidates, Abdullah Abdullah, the former foreign minister, and Ashraf Ghani, the former finance minister, to stick to the agreement for a full audit that they reached in July.
Someday, Afghanistan Will Get A New President, NPR
Or perhaps, an agreement to reach an agreement about agreeing to the previous agreement.
So in a way, it's an agreement to reach an agreement, but what the specific details will be remains to be determined.
New deal brings hope to Afghanistan, ABC Radio Australia
At any rate, we are entering a new phase.
Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah said Saturday that his country was entering "a new phase" in an interview with Agence France Presse, raising hopes that a bitter dispute over fraud-tainted elections might soon be resolved.
Abdullah and his bitter rival Ashraf Ghani vowed Friday to work together whoever becomes president in a unity government deal that was overseen by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry during a visit to Kabul to mediate an end to the impasse.
The feud threatens to revive ethnic conflict in the war-weary nation as U.S.-led NATO troops withdraw after more than a decade in the country.
"I'm hopeful but I'm not saying that we are at the end of the road. We are at the beginning of a new phase," Abdullah told Agence France Presse.
Abdullah: Afghanistan Entering 'a New Phase', AFP
In 2010, trying to solve a seven-month election impasse in Iraq, the U.S. had proposed a power-sharing plan, with the creation of a new government position.
A U.S.-proposed power-sharing plan between the two men, which would have limited Maliki's power as prime minister and created a new federal position for Allawi, is all but dead.
Still struggling to form government, Iraq breaks a world record, Washington Post
James Cunningham, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, though, says that the current proposed power-sharing plan in Afghanistan, with the creation of a new government position, is not an American idea.
Speaking at a press conference at the US Embassy in Kabul, Cunningham said the formation of a national unity government was not a US plan. “It's not our idea; It was something agreed to by the two candidates following talks.”
Cunningham says Afghan Unity govt not an US idea, Frontier Post
The recent audiotape, purported to be of Vice President Karim Khalili, a Ghani supporter, saying that international observers had approved swinging the audit to Ghani, is disputed by a Ghani supporter, who says that the Abdullah camp is paying the United Nations to swing the audit to Abdullah instead.
Suddenly, a Ghani observer, who doesn't give his name, runs up to me and accuses the Abdullah camp of paying the United Nations to carry out the audit in favor of Abdullah.
Someday, Afghanistan Will Get A New President, NPR
The United States has been heavily stressing that it would like Afghanistan to get a new president in time to be rolled out at a September meeting of NATO, in Wales.
But the outside world’s role is also at stake. NATO countries that have propped up Afghanistan since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban are due to meet in Wales on Sept. 4. Most combat troops are scheduled to be withdrawn from Afghanistan by year’s end, but decisions have not yet been made on the number of those who may be left behind. Or the terms to stay. Or the mission itself.
The appetite for any form of continued NATO engagement–and what amounts and kind of Western aid–will be heavily influenced by whether Afghans can get their political act together by the September summit. If a new president is not in place, Kabul may lose what international interest remains in investing further human and financial capital in Afghanistan’s future.
Countdown to Afghanistan’s Future, Wall Street Journal
The proposed rollout of the new president of Afghanistan, in Wales, seems pretty ambitious, though.
This timeline that the candidates seem to have committed to is, however, almost implausibly ambitious and the pressure is likely to make further hiccups almost unavoidable. To meet the deadline, the IEC not only has to quickly finish the audit, but it also has to pass the outcome on to the IECC for a final complaints process, before the outcome can be finalised. This would effectively mean auditing 1000-1500 boxes per day, every day, including on weekends, with no further delays or setbacks. Although the pace of the audit has been somewhat picking up over the last few days, it is still quite slow. At lunchtime on 9 August a total of 5291 boxes (of the 23,000-plus) had been audited. And as witnessed by AAN at the site of the audit, yesterday’s agreement so far seemed to have had no effect on the time-consuming ways in which votes were being scrutinised and fought over.
The second installment of a Kerry-brokered agreement, Afghanistan Analysts Network
Election workers say if the audit continues like this, it will take months to complete.
Someday, Afghanistan Will Get A New President, NPR