Clinton says Karzai set to announce his intentions (AP)
WASHINGTON – Afghan President Hamid Karzai intends to announce Tuesday how he will “set the stage” for resolving the country’s postelection political crisis, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday.
“He is going to announce his intentions,” Clinton told reporters at the State Department after meeting with Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki. “I am going to let him do that, but I am encouraged at the direction the situation is moving.”
Clinton declined to say whether Karzai has decided to accept the recommendation of a U.N.-backed fraud investigation that threw out nearly a third of Karzai’s ballots from the disputed August election and set the stage for a runoff.
“I am very hopeful that we will see a resolution in line with the constitutional order in the next several days,” she said. “But I don’t want to pre-empt in any way President Karzai’s statement, which will set the stage for how we go forward in the next stage of this.”
Clinton said she has spoken a number of times to Karzai in recent days.
In Kabul, Karzai campaign spokesman Waheed Omar said the president was waiting for the Afghan-led Independent Election Commission to decide whether to accept the fraud panel’s findings that dropped Karzai’s vote share to 48 percent of the total, below the 50 percent threshold needed for him to avoid a runoff.
The original vote count had given Karzai 54 percent of the total.
Once the independent commission has accepted and certified the findings, they have force of law and the Karzai campaign would comply, the spokesman said.
Clinton said she has received assurances from the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, as well as from Afghan authorities, that it’s possible to conduct a second election before the onset of paralyzing winter snows.
