 | Karzai vows 'inclusive' government |
11/3/2009 5:41:13 AM
Hamid Karzai, the re-elected Afghan president, has vowed that his government will represent all his countrymen.
"Today I would like to say that no one will see themselves distant in this process and all of us will be a part of the Afghanistan government," he said in a low-key victory speech on Tuesday.
Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IEC) declared Karzai the winner on Monday after Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister and Karzai's only rival in the presidential runoff scheduled for November 7, withdrew from the race.
"The democratic process would have been better if our colleague Abdullah Abdullah had participated in this process and the second round had taken place," Karzai told reporters.
"... it did not happen, but again we are happy the constitution was respected ... it went in the right way."
'Conciliatory tone'
Al Jazeera's James Bays, reporting from Kabul, the Afghan capital, said that Karzai had set "quite a conciliatory tone" in his speech.
"Special mention of Abdullah Abdullah, who he mentioned had got about half a million votes, actually it was closer to one million," he said.
"Is he going to offer an olive branch to Dr Abdullah and his supporters and offer them some seats in his cabinet? That is certainly what the international community are calling for.
Meanwhile, the Taliban said that the outcome of the election, which has been marred by violence and widespread fraud, showed that the real decisions about Afghanistan were made by the United States and its allies.
"The cancellation of the second round of elections has shown that the decisions about Afghanistan are made in Washington and London, even though the announcement took place in Kabul," the group said in a statement.
"What is surprising is that just two weeks ago in the election they said the votes belonging to puppet Karzai were all fraudulent, and not acceptable.
"But now with these fake votes, they have selected Karzai, and immediately Washington and London have sent Karzai messages of congratulations."
Congratulations offered
Barack Obama, the US president, was among the world leaders who congratulated Karzai on his re-election but also called on him to tackle corruption.
"I emphasised that this has to be a point in time in which we write a new chapter based on improved governance, a much more serious effort to eradicate corruption [and] joint efforts to accelerate the training of Afghan security forces," Obama said after phoning Karzai.
Obama's call on Monday came hours after the US administration said it considered Karzai to be the legitimate president of Afghanistan.
Washington is currently considering its options in Afghanistan, with General Stanely McChrystal, the US and Nato commander in the country, believed to be calling for up to 40,000 additional troops to be deployed.
The discovery of widespread fraud in the first round on August 20 resulted in Karzai's share of the vote falling below the 50 per cent threshold needed to avoid a runoff.
Ballot-box stuffing and distorted tallies led to more than one million votes in favour of the incumbent being thrown out.
The validity of the electoral process and the independence of the IEC have both been called into question.
Abdullah cited the government's refusal to accept his demands for changes to the IEC for his decision to boycott the runoff.
LATEST CENTRAL/S.ASIA
