–updated–
Richard Holbrooke was nowhere to be seen when Pres. Karzai made the announcement to accept the run off. Sen. John Kerry, who was the man on the ground and has had a series of meetings with Karzai, stood close by instead. While Holbrooke continues to work steadily behind the scenes, his presence in public had become noisy.
The international pressure was too intense for Mr. Karzai to buck, with the threat of his country completely unraveling if he didn’t cede to the demands. BBC reporting:
Afghanistan will hold a second round of its presidential election on 7 November, poll officials say.
The run-off will take place between President Hamid Karzai and his main rival Abdullah Abdullah.
At the same time, Mr. Karzai pressed for unity, saying “is not the right time to discuss investigations.”
According to the BBC, the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) order ballots from 210 voting stations to be discounted completely.
And to add, late yesterday SecDef Gates said that regardless of the election, the U.S. has to make a decision on troops now. This was a dissent to what the White House and Sen. Kerry have stated publicly. I remain unconvinced that vamping does any good at all, because a strategy going forward depends very little who sits on top of the mess. It’s not as if the Afghans respect or trust the central government, which will take a long time to manifest.
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