Abdullah Abdullah, the Afghan presidential candidate, has agreed to a runoff vote on November 7 with Hamid Karzai, the incumbent president. "We are completely ready for the second round," Abdullah said at a news conference on Wednesday, a day after Karzai conceded following findings of largescale rigging during the first round on August 20.
The runoff became inevitable after the country's Independent Election Commission (IEC) confirmed that one-third of ballots cast for Karzai in the earlier round had been fraudulent.
This reduced Karzai's share of the final certified result to 49.62 per cent, below the 50 necessary to avoid a presidential poll runoff with Abdullah, who took 30.59 per cent.
Speaking at a news conference in Kabul on Wednesday, Azizullah Ludin, the IEC chairman, confirmed the next election would take place on November 7.
"The IEC has started to deploy staff and equipment around the country, beginning at the provincial capitals ... we have the necessary funds for a second round of elections", Ludin said.
"The world has expectations that there will be good elections in Afghanistan."
The chairman also said his commission would bring those who committed fraud in the last elections to justice, but warned that this would be no easy task.
"You know that during the August elections, we lost staff ... 15 of our staff were killed, and another 20 were wounded," Ludin said.
James Bays, Al Jazeera's correspondent in the Afghan capital, Kabul, reported that Abdullah had softened his combative approach towards Karzai.
"The whole tone of this news conference has been moderate," he said. "He has been very conciliatory towards Karzai.
"I think that both men have been told [by the US and international powers] to do that to try to avoid any trouble that may break out, any spontaneous trouble for example on the streets."
Bays said that Abdullah had also not openly criticised the IEC which organised the first poll.
"He's been very strong in the past saying that the chairman of that commission is a Karzai man and that he cannot be trusted.
"One of Abdullah's aides told me that he [Abdullah] is trying to get other figures in the international community - possibly the US, possibly the UN - to put pressure on the IEC to change things.
"If Abdullah comes out and says the chairman must resign, Karzai will probably stand up to that and say 'no, I back the chairman'.
"But if the UN or the international community says that they want to see changes, then there might be changes."
Source: Al Jazeera (English)
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