Karzai Expected to Agree to Runoff

Source: Washington Post

Obama administration officials said they expect Afghan President Hamid Karzai to announce Tuesday that he will accept a runoff in his country's disputed election, following the invalidation of nearly a million of his votes by the commission investigating fraud in the Aug. 20 race.

The findings by the U.N.-backed International Complaints Commission, released Monday after two months of political turmoil, stripped Karzai of nearly a third of his votes, bringing him below 50 percent of the total and triggering a constitutionally mandated second round of voting between him and the runner-up, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.

Senior administration officials, while palpably relieved at what they said had been an apparent breakthrough in tense negotiations with Karzai, remained reluctant to state unequivocally that he had agreed to a runoff. "There are any number of cliches you could choose from," said one official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, "but we'll wait until the chickens are hatched."

more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/19/AR2009101900351.html?hpid=topnews

:shrug:

And he'll willingly submit to a runoff? Somehow I don't think so. But the Post is welcome to entertain its delusions.

UN to pack up their tents and go home. That would leave Karzai in one hell of a fix.

He'd be surrounded by a whole bunch of warlords on both sides looking to usurp his authority, I think that is the best course of action for him.