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US accepts Karzai but tells him: Earn trust of your people
Ed Harris29.09.09
Hillary Clinton said today that the Afghan president must earn the trust of his people by addressing claims of serious fraud in last month's elections.
The White House is reported to have overcome its unease about widespread evidence of vote-rigging and has accepted President Karzai as the winner.
But in a meeting with the Afghan foreign minister at the UN General Assembly, Secretary of State Mrs Clinton said a credible investigation into the allegations was critical to the legitimacy of the current government.
Barack Obama's administration is said to have conceded that Mr Karzai will be president for another five years, despite evidence that up to 20 per cent of ballots cast may have been fraudulent. Advisers say that even if Mr Karzai were forced into a second round of voting he would almost certainly win it.
The decision by the White House will increase pressure on President Obama to justify further US troop deployments to Afghanistan.
It came hours before Mr Obama received a formal request from General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, for up to 40,000 more soldiers.
Mrs Clinton told Rangin Dadfar Spanta, the Afghan foreign minister, that she and her Nato colleagues, including Foreign Secretary David Miliband, had agreed that Mr Karzai would remain president even if his share of the first-round vote was cut to below 50 per cent as a result of investigations now under way.
The meeting took place last Friday but details emerged yesterday, according to The Times. The 20 August elections were marred by claims of ballot stuffing and voter coercion. Officials are now recounting a sample of 10 per cent of ballot boxes from 3,063 polling stations with suspect results.
Reader views (1)
Karzai is the dead weight around the neck of the Afghanistan campaign as Diem was in Vietnam. What has his government done for the Afghan people over the last 6 years that will convince them that their needs would not be better met by the Taliban ? Health clinics in Helmand still inooperative for example. They need schools, roads, clinics, water and the ability to earn a living in peace. None of this exists in anything like the required quantity and corruption in his government will ensure that it will not in any conceivable timeframe. Unless NATO takes over running the country then it is staring defeat in the face.
- Peter Haldane, Chelmsford
