Having gone through their usual rocky election season, Afghanistan is now settling into a new, post-election crisis. CEO Abdullah Abdullah, declared the loser in the election, has declared himself something more akin to a winner.
On top of that, Abdullah is accusing everyone who says he didn’t win of a coup against his impending rule. He is blaming election officials for the issue, and has summarily banned all those officials from leaving the country.
For the time being, the situation in Afghanistan remains calm, though likely this is at least in part because no one expected this Afghan election to be any more resolved than the others were.
It seems likely that the two candidates will move toward establishing two rival governments, almost certainly a destabilizing outcome in the best of times. Coming amid talks with the Taliban, it is likely to make power-sharing talks substantially more complex.
Declared Election Loser, Afghan CEO Claims Coup
As election crisis mounts, Abdullah forbids officials from leaving country
Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.
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