Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Kabul, The two candidates in Afghanistan’s contested election agreed on the long-awaited formation of a unity government on Sunday, setting the stage for President Hamid Karzai’s departure from office as well as a security agreement allowing American troops to remain in the country after this year.
After a tumultuous, year-long election designed to mark Afghanistan’s first peaceful transfer of power between elected governments, former finance minister Ashraf Ghani and former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah joined Karzai in announcing the deal. Ghani and Abdullah will share power for the next five years, with Ghani serving as president and Abdullah as a chief executive officer.
Abdullah and Ghani signed the agreement in an ornate hall at the presidential palace, and then briefly hugged. But neither candidate spoke, leaving it up to Karzai to formally address an election-fatigued nation.
“The Afghan people have been waiting for this happy day,” said Karzai, who became president in late 2001 but will step down in the coming days. “I hope the things I couldn’t do, you two can do.”
The deal appears to cement an arrangement that U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry brokered this summer when it appeared Afghanistan risked slipping back into the kind of ethnic violence that dogged it for much of its history.
But it remained unclear on Sunday whether Afghans will ever know the true results of an election that was undermined by allegations of fraud. And even if a new government is sworn-in this week, many leaders and analysts remain skeptical about its long-term viability.
“This is whole agreement and process is out of Afghan law and unconstitutional,” said Mohammad Ali Elizadah, a member of the parliament from Ghazni in central Afghanistan. “This political agreement is a temporary solution and I don’t think we will have an efficient and effective government. “
Still, the White House hailed the agreement, saying it will “bring closure to Afghanistan’s political crisis, and restores confidence in the way forward.”
“In the days to come, Afghanistan has an enormous opportunity to grow stronger from this recent moment of testing,” Kerry said in a separate statement.
In April, defying threats of violence from Taliban militants, millions of Afghans turned out to choose among eight presidential candidates.
Abdullah finished first in that contest, but failed to get 50 percent of the vote, forcing a June runoff with second-place finisher Ghani. Ghani won the runoff by more than 1 million votes, causing Abdullah and his supporters to allege widespread fraud.
Amid threats of violence from Abdullah supporters and calls for the formation of a parallel government, the deal brokered by Kerry called for a recount and then the formation of the coalition government.
But the recount process dragged on for several months under the supervision of foreign observers, and Ghani and Abdullah have spent weeks haggling over who would hold what powers in the new government.
To finalize the deal, President Obama had to make three phone calls to each candidates, and Kerry made 13 calls to Ghani and 14 to Abdullah, according to a senior administration official. In one particularly blunt call to Abdullah on Wednesday, Kerry warned the international coalition’s patience was running out.
“If you don’t come to agreement now, today, the possibilities for Afghanistan will become very difficult, if not dangerous,” Kerry said, according to the American official. “I really need to emphasize to you that if you do not have an agreement, if you do not move to a unity government, the United States will not be able to support Afghanistan.”
Under the terms of the agreement signed Sunday, Ghani and Abdullah will be expected to make decisions jointly and split appointment-making powers.
For the arrangement to work, however, Abdullah has been insisting that the Afghan Independent Election Commission not release the final results of the recount. Abdullah alleges the recount was not thorough enough to uncover fraud.
On Sunday, Abudullah appeared to be getting his wish, as the planned release of the results was delayed for the third-consecutive day. If the results are withheld indefinitely, some Ghani supporters said they will be disenfranchised and warn it will set a troubling precedent for future Afghan elections.
“No institution has the right to ignore a single vote of the Afghan People,” said Jafar Mahdawi, a parliamentarian from Kabul who supported Ghani. “The signed agreement is extra-constitutional and based on the facts on the ground the national unity government is like a ‘pain killer drug’ that in short-run it will mitigate the tensions but in long run will be the source of troubles.”
The lengthy election process has been blamed for an economic slowdown, a crippling budget shortfall, and deteriorating security in parts of the country. With Ghani and Abdullah now unified, there was hope among Afghans on Sunday that the country’s woes could now be overcome.
“There has been no business since the election-related tensions started,” said Mohammad Faisal, a 31-year-old shopkeeper in Kabul. “If they work together, and put aside their differences, everything will be alright.”
Still, for other Afghans, the agreement stokes even more fears about the future.
“I see no good future for the national unity government,” said Yousef, a 28-year-old taxi driver who like many Afghans uses only one name. “If it takes this long for them to reach an agreement on a national government, God knows in the future how much contention will take place in the appointment of a single police chief or a district governor.”
U.S. officials, however, saw few good options for resolving the stalemate without the formation of a unity government. Over the summer and into the fall, there were concerns the country could slip into civil war should the two candidates fail to resolve their differences due the allegations of fraud.
Ghani is an ethnic Pashtun who draws the bulk of his support from southern and eastern Afghanistan. Abdullah’s mother was Tajik, but had a Pashtun father and considers his power-base to be in ethnically diverse northern Afghanistan.
Ghani, a former World Bank official, spent part of his life in the United States but returned to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban to serve in Karzai’s government in the early 2000s. He left his job as finance minister in 2004 and became head of Kabul University.
Abdullah, an eye doctor, was a top aide to legendary Afghan guerrilla commander Ahmed Shah Massoud during Afghanistan’s civil war in the 1990s. He later became a diplomat, and was named foreign minister from 2002 until Karzai ousted him in 2006.
During this year’s campaign, both Abdullah and Ghani had stressed a desire to improve relations with the United States that had become strained during Karzai’s second term in office. Both have pledged to quickly sign the security-agreement with the United States allowing up to 15,000 foreign troops to remain in Afghanistan through 2024.
But President Obama said this summer he plans to keep only 10,000 American troops in Afghanistan next year. Obama plans to withdrawal all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2016.
