US Envoy Holbrooke Walks Back Karzai Dust-up

Posted by johnhouk on Sep 04, 2009
 For democracy to work in Afghanistan the heads of tribal families would have to unite and agree to binding decisions of the majority. Then the tribal heads would have to agree to cooperate with a U.S. supported Afghan government (that is wishfully lacking in corruption) to confront warlords that are not tribal leaders that fight to protect their drug business or are Islamic ideologues.

I suspect the problem that might crimp this thought would be some tribal families stretch across the Afghan/Pakistan border. Defeated or weakened warlords could simply find haven in the wild lands of Pakistan which the Pakistani government exerts little to no authority.

With these thoughts based on opinion more than on facts: read the Gary H. Johnson Jr. story on the corruption in the recent Afghan national election in which Karzai more than likely won a fraudulent election.

JRH 9/4/09
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US Envoy Holbrooke Walks Back Karzai Dust-up

By Gary H. Johnson, Jr.
September 4, 2009
The AfPak Reader

Afghanistan’s incumbent president Hamid Karzai seems destined to win re-election; however, the legitimacy of the democratic process in Afghanistan is on the ropes. After the September 20th elections, Special Envoy to the AfPak, Richard A. Holbrooke reportedly had a few choice words during a lunch with Karzai over allegations of ballot stuffing and other voting irregularities.

According to Ian Pannell of BBC News, who broke the story on August 27th, “Mr. Holbrooke is said to have twice raised the idea of holding a second round run-off because of concerns about the voting process.” According to sources, when Holbrooke posited that members of Karzai’s team were involved in fraud, “Mr. Karzai reacted very angrily and the meeting ended shortly afterwards.”

Though the presidential palace spokesman denied the account of the “explosive” meeting and the US embassy spokeswoman refused to comment on the meeting, Pannell’s report was based on “a number of senior sources,” who confirmed the details of the meeting between Mr. Holbrooke and Mr. Karzai held on 21 August.

On August 29th, The Times of India reported that “Karzai met twice with US President Barack Obama’s envoy to Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, after the August 20 presidential election, including a private lunch in Kabul that turned “tense” when the US envoy raised the possibility of a run-off.”

The ripple effect of Holbrooke’s initial meetinga (sic) with Karzai, followed by a week long litany of fraud and election abuse charges aimed at Karzai’s campaign team, led to protests tinged with the threat of violence.

On August 27th, open sources reported that “the tribal leaders from Paktiya in the southern Pashtun belt descended on the capital, Kabul, to hold a protest rally against what they claimed was the theft of their votes by representatives of Mr. Karzai.”

A candidate from the Paktiya region, Mr. Ahmedzai, who organized the protest, said, “Karzai has surrounded himself with corrupt people and his brothers are corrupt. We reserve the right to take any action necessary if the fraud is not dealt with. More of our people are coming to Kabul and they are not going to tolerate the election being stolen.”

Timothy Carney, the head of Barack Obama’s Afghanistan election monitoring team, expressed extreme concern about allegations of fraud in the Afghanistan election, stressing that all evidence should be examined thoroughly by investigators.

Another Pashtun leader, Mir Ali, agitating in the charged atmosphere told Carney that “We will take to the mountains and fight as we have done in the past if this election is decided by fraud. Karzai may call himself a Pashtun but he has sold himself to the warlords.”

Luckily, Mr. Ahmedzai was persuaded by Western officials to call off the protest, as tempers flared.

On September 2nd, the UK’s Telegraph, reported “Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy to Afghanistan, described the outcome of its presidential election as ‘critical’ to the country’s future after the number of allegations of fraud grew to more than 2,500.” If confirmed, more than 600 are deemed serious enough to sway the election result.

Since fraud allegations must be cleared before a final vote tally is registered, sources say that the results which were scheduled to be released on September 17th may not be known until late September.

Among the 600 serious charges, a Kandahar tribal leader claims that 30,000 votes were cast for Karzai, fraudulently. Ahmed Wali Karzai, Hamid Karzai’s brother, who heads the Kandahar provincial council, strongly denied the allegations of fraud. He told the BBC: “The accusation is baseless and if anyone has any complaints regarding this problem, they should get in touch with the complaints office. I will be more than happy to answer questions.”

On September 2nd, in Paris, France, the special envoys of the United States, France and 24 other countries and organizations met to discuss the Afghan challenge. In a master stroke, Special Envoy Holbrooke played down the fraud charges in the Afghan election, comparing the ballot irregularities to a U.S. Senate challenge. “During that process, there are going to be many claims of irregularities; that happens in every democracy,” said Holbrooke. “We recently had a senatorial election in Minnesota, which took seven months to determine the outcome. There were so many charges of irregularities. It certainly will not take that long in Afghanistan. But that happens in democracies, even when they are not in the middle of a war,” he added.

In response to the mounting tide of charges of irregularities in the voting Mr. Abdullah has levelled a heavy charge, accusing the Afghan government and the Independent Election Commission of colluding on fraud. “With the cooperation of the Election Commission a massive fraud has taken place,” he said.

In the September 2nd on-line edition of the New York Times, Steven Erlanger notes that “Richard C. Holbrooke and other foreign envoys responsible for Afghanistan said Wednesday that they had no preference among the candidates for president in the Aug. 20 election, but that they would like a new government to appoint more efficient, less corrupt ministers.”

Following the diplomatic meeting on September 2nd, Holbrooke completed the walk back of the explosive Karzai dust-up, denying reports of an angry argument with Mr. Karzai in meetings on Aug. 21 and Aug. 23. There were four hours of “very clear, direct discussions” of the election process, but “nobody shouted; no one walked out,” Mr. Holbrooke said.

Two weeks after the elections, 60.3% of the polling station ballots have been counted. Karzai is in the lead with 47.3% of the vote, with Abdullah trailing by over 500,000 votes at 32.6%.

Questions of fraud remain in the strained democratic process of the Afghan presidential election; however, Abdullah’s charges of collusion to commit fraud betweeen (sic) the Independent Election Commission and the Afghan Government only seem to be bolstered by Holbrooke’s tacit denial that an “explosive” meeting took place between Karzai and himself.

Considering that the majority of polling stations that have not reported are largely located in the Pashtun dominated south, the possibility of Karzai crossing the 50% threshhold (sic) is high. A run-off election on October 1st is by no means a foregone conclusion.

Strangely, in the end, legitimacy in the 2009 Afghan presidential election may hinge on whether BBC reporter Ian Pannell’s ”senior sources” are willing to openly charge US Special Envoy Holbrooke with a cover up.

Notes:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8225745.stm

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/World/US/US-warns-Karzai-over-poll-fraud-graft/articleshow/4946925.cms

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/fraud-claims-cloud-growing-karzai-lead-1777744.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/6128642/Afghanistan-election-Richard-Holbrooke-says-country-faces-critical-moment.html
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