Hamid Karzai has to stay on for now as Afghan presidential impasse continues

As Hamid Karzai was scheduled to step down today, September 2, as president of Afghanistan there is still no president to take his place. NATO is slated to discuss Afghanistan at a summit in Wales in two days time with no new Afghan president to attend.

US Secretary of State John Kerry had brokered a deal in which all 8 million votes cast in the June runoff elections would be audited and a national unity government formed with the runner-up in the vote to name a "chief executive". Abddullah Abdullah who won in the first round of voting by a large margin, ran second in the runoff vote against Ashraf Ghani. Abdullah claimed that there was massive fraud and vote-rigging in the runoff. John Kerry consequently was able to broker the deal described above. Mohammad Mohaqeq, a vice-presidential running mate of Abdullah said that the two sides were unable to agree on the powers of the chief executive and accused Ghani's side of taking a hard line on the issue. Mohaqeq, a leader of the Hazara minority, said: “The talks collapsed two days ago. The political process is now at a stalemate; we don't see any way out.” In an ominous threat, the Abdullah group said it would pull out of the political process entirely if its demands were not met by Tuesday, September 2. Ally of Abdullah, Balkh provincial governor Atta Noor, told his supporters to be ready for street protests.

 Abdullah's group had earlier withdrawn from a UN audit of the run-off election votes His team expressed dissatisfaction with the manner in which allegedly fraudulent votes were being treated. The UN asked Ghani's team to also withdraw from monitoring the audit. The audit then continued with neither group present. President Karzai had planned for the inauguration of the new president September 2 when he intended to step down. Now he will be forced to continue as president until a decision is made as to who won the runoff election. The audit is still not expected to be completed until Sept. 10 but even then since there is no agreement on a unity government the situation remains unclear. 

 Karzai is not going to quit power without the completion of the process, a spokesman said:“The President is not considering the step down before the official transfer of power to the new Afghan President. It is unconstitutional to step down before officially transferring the power to his successor." 

 NATO and the US plan to keep some troops mainly in an advisory and training role in Afghanistan after the end of 2014. However, to do so, they want the new president to sign a bilateral security agreement that will set out the role and status of the forces. An agreement was approved by a meeting of Afghan elders and the Afghan parliament some time ago but Karzai has refused to sign it, and issued further demands that the US rejected. Karzai will not attend the NATO summit but has nominated his defense minister to attend instead. Both presidential candidates have agreed to sign. However, if there is no president soon NATO officials claim that they will have no alternative but to pull out all their troops at the end of 2014 without leaving any behind.