Abdullah questions legitimacy of new Afghan government (Roundup)

Kabul - Candidate Abdullah Abdullah on Wednesday sharply criticized the decision of the country's election commission to declare incumbent Hamid Karzai the winner of Afghanistan's disputed presidential election. Abdullah, who pulled out of a runoff with Karzai that had been scheduled for this coming Saturday, said there was 'no legal basis' for the decision of the Independent Election Commission (IEC). 'The IEC took a decision which first of all was not in its mandate,' he said at a press conference at his Kabul home in his first reaction to the election results declared Monday. 'It did not have the legal authority to do so.' However, the former foreign minister added, 'I will leave it to the Afghan people to judge it.' He refrained from calling for protests and asked his supporters to remain calm. 'My hope and my request from the people who supported me is to be patient and don't take any illegal action,' he said. 'Let's leave this to be the only violation of the law,' he said, adding, 'I and my supporters are ready, when it comes to the interest of the country, to make sacrifices.' The commission was widely perceived to be biased toward Karzai in Afghanistan's drawn-out election quagmire. The August 20 election was marred by massive fraud, mostly favouring the president. Abdullah withdrew from the race because he said he feared renewed fraud by the president's supporters. The commission then scrapped the runoff and declared Karzai president. There are lingering doubts over the legality of the decision as the Afghan constitution demands a runoff if no candidate receives more than 50 per cent of the vote in the first round. Neither the commission nor the Supreme Court were independent, Abdullah said. The Supreme Court judges would have made the same decision favouring Karzai if the commission had not done so, he claimed. 'This decision has no legal basis, and the government that will be formed based on this illegal decision will not be able to bring the rule of law in this country and address other challenges,' the former diplomat said. After his decision to withdraw from the runoff, questions remained in Afghanistan about how Abdullah would capitalize on the political popularity he gained through the roughly five-month election period. 'I am not interested in joining the cabinet because the principle of our programme and the principle of our election campaign was to bring change,' Abdullah said, adding that in future, 'I will act as a pressure group.' Karzai on Tuesday announced plans to form a government of national unity, which was to include representatives of all political and ethnic groups. He did not specify whether he would offer to cooperate with Abdullah. Afghan and Western officials, however, said that talks were under way between the two camps to include some of Abdullah's supporters in the new cabinet. They said that Abdullah's team has also demanded that the governor of the northern province of Balkh must stay in his post in return for their appeal to his supporters to stay calm and support the new administration. Ustad Atta Mohammad Noor, one of the most powerful former warlords and the current governor of strategically important Balkh, angered Karzai after he announced his support for Abdullah in the elections in June. Karzai immediately dismissed the governor, but Noor refused to leave office, saying the president did not have the authority to remove him after Karzai's five-year term ended in May. According to the constitution, the presidential election should have taken place in May, but because of weather and logistical constraints, it was postponed until August.