Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday said his successor would take office on Sept. 2, despite a slow-moving vote audit designed to eliminate fraudulent ballots cast for the two contenders.
“The Afghan government is totally ready for the inauguration ceremony of the new president on the date of Sept. 2,” the presidential palace said in a statement.
The date would not be changed, according to the statement, which was issued following talks between Karzai and UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan head Jan Kubis.
The new president was due to be inaugurated on Aug. 2 in Afghanistan’s first democratic transfer of power, but the government has been paralyzed for months after the first round of the election failed to produce a clear winner and the second round of voting in June triggered allegations of massive fraud.
As fears grew of a return to civil war, the US last month brokered an emergency deal designed to end the impasse between poll rivals former Afghan minister of finance Ashraf Ghani and former Afghan minister of foreign affairs Abdullah Abdullah.
Yet neither candidate appears willing to back down and the dispute looks set to break out again in the coming days when early results emerge from an anti-fraud audit of all 8 million votes cast in the initial poll.
The audit has checked more than 60 percent of votes and the next stage of invalidating fraudulent ballots will likely raise tensions between the candidates — who are also meant to be in talks about a post-election unity government.
Washington had been pushing for the next president to be inaugurated before a NATO summit starting on Sept. 4 that should sign off on follow-up support after the transatlantic alliance’s combat mission in Afghanistan ends this year.
The political crisis would worsen sharply if either candidate pulls out of the audit or rejects its outcome, with possible angry street protests in Kabul by aggrieved supporters set to pose a major challenge to the national security forces.
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