Abdullah expected to boycott Afghan run-off as U.S. combat injuries sharply rise

Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah may pull out of next week’s runoff election against President Hamid Karzai, due to concerns about the credibility of the poll. After the fraudulent August 20 elections, a recount left Karzai with less than 50 percent of the vote, triggering a runoff, to which Karzai agreed last week. But Abdullah’s demands for the resignation of top officials including the head of the Independent Electoral Commission to avoid fraud in the second round of voting November 7, have not been met. A senior campaign aide said if Abdullah’s conditions were not met, “we will not participate in an election which is not transparent and fraud-free.”

Abdullah is expected to make his announcement at an address in Kabul at 9:30 am (0500 GMT) on Sunday, which the media have been invited to attend. Karzai is holding last minute talks with Abdullah, trying to head off a boycott. Under the Afghan Constitution, the run-off could go ahead with Karzai as the only candidate, but it would have a serious impact on the new government’s legitimacy, which is already highly in question.

President Obama has been holding off on a decision to send more troops to Afghanistan even with 68,000 troops currently installed, until the election dispute is resolved, citing concerns for stability. Meanwhile the past months has been the deadliest period in the Afghanistan war for American soldiers, and in the last three months the number of wounded troops has escalated as well. Over 1,000 troops have been injured in the past three months, a number that accounts for one-fourth of the total number wounded since the war began in 2001. Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell acknowledged that the casualties in Afghanistan have surpassed Iraq surge proportions.