Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the main challenger to Afghan president Hamid Karzai, might not participate in election runoff.
Incumbent President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai might not have an opponent for the second round of the country’s national elections.
There is speculation that Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the president’s challenger, will boycott the November 7 runoff election unless negotiations for a coalition government are started and three members of the election commission are dismissed.
Abdullah has remained silent regarding what steps he will take if his deadline passes, but analysts suggest his rejection of the runoff would discredit the legitimacy of the new government.
"At this stage there is really a lot of uncertainty [over what] Dr. Abdullah is going to do," Alexander Jackson, Policy Analyst with the International Council on Security and Development, told The Media Line. "There is going to be a lot of pressure from the international community to stop him from pulling out of the runoff because so much energy has been invested in this going ahead so the international community is going to push him to stay in the race whatever happens."
"[Dr Abdullah] genuinely believes the independent election commission is not independent and that it is a tool of President Karzai," Jackson said. "The chairman of the elections commission was very pro-Karzai before the first round and now he is very confident of President Karzai’s chances, which isn’t the kind of thing you would expect from a supposedly independent body."
"Dr. Abdullah believes that the current machinery of the election process is flawed and he is unwilling to go into a second round knowing that the odds are stacked against him already," he added.
The scheduled November 7 runoff date comes just two weeks after President Karzai called for a second round amid intensive international pressure following allegations of election irregularities during the first round.
The results of the election are believed to play a part in U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision over whether or not to send additional troops to Afghanistan.
General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is in favor of sending an additional 40,000 combat forces to join the present force of 68,000.