KABUL (AP) -- The runner-up in Afghanistan's presidential election pushed Tuesday for an acting government to shepherd the country through the winter if it's too difficult or alarming to organize a runoff in the advancing weeks.
The possibility of a runoff has loomed larger afterwards a U.N.-backed panel Monday threw out a third of President Hamid Karzai's votes from the Aug. 20 ballot. Karzai was expected to accede the charge for a runoff with arch battling Abdullah Abdullah afterwards canicule of afraid artifice rulings that pulled his totals below the 50 percent threshold.
U.S. Sen. John Kerry, administrator of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, met with Karzai again Tuesday - his fifth affair in as abounding days. He additionally met again Tuesday with Abdullah, Karzai's former adopted minister, according to the U.S. Embassy.
Another election risks the same artifice that batty the August vote, forth with annoying violence and increasing ethnic divisions. A November runoff additionally could be bedfast by winter snows that block off abundant of the arctic of the country starting mid-month.
The primary another that has been floated is a power-sharing deal, admitting the form that ability booty is unclear. And it could booty weeks or months to bang out an acceding between the two rivals.
So two months back the Aug. 20 poll that abounding hoped would re-establish the legitimacy of Afghanistan's government, the United States is still far from award a government it can point to as a legitimate accomplice in the increasingly violent battle adjoin the Taliban.
In the latest fighting, Afghan and all-embracing forces killed about half a dozen ! militant s during a raid on compounds used by a Taliban commander in eastern Wardak arena on Tuesday, the U.S. aggressive said in a statement.
A spokesman for the Abdullah campaign said they do not consider a affiliation or power-sharing government an adequate alternative.
"A affiliation is adjoin the law and does not account the political action of the country," Fazel Sancharaki said, acquainted that Afghan electoral law has no accoutrement for such a process.
"If anyone proposes that, they should accept actual strong reasons for it." He did not busy on what reasons ability actuate Abdullah to consider such an option.
Abdullah still sees a second-round vote as the best path, he said. If there are security or acclimate apropos that beggarly a runoff can't be captivated before spring, some sort of acting administration should charge to be worked out between the two candidates and with the advice of the all-embracing community, Sancharaki said.
"Karzai's term is over, we cannot accept him for several more months," he said.
The acceding that a runoff is required is likely just the first step in negotiations to iron out these differences between the Karzai and Abdullah camps.
The U.S. appears to be abetment a power-sharing deal, but there are a number of accessible scenarios. In Afghanistan, abounding accept additionally appropriate holding a loya jirga - a traditional Afghan affair area decisions are fabricated through a combination of negotiation and consensus.
American officials accept again said they're blame for a "legitimate government" in Afghanistan, which does not necessarily charge to be elected. People familiar with the talks accept said both Karzai and Abdullah accept said abreast that they're open to the idea of a coalition, admitting with actual altered interpretations of what that would beggarly an! d back i t could happen.
The Aug. 20 poll was characterized by Taliban attacks on polling stations and government buildings that killed dozens of people. In some areas, militants cut off the ink-marked fingers of bodies who had voted.
Turnout was dampened during that vote because of threats of violence from the Taliban and abounding say even fewer bodies would come out in a runoff.
Despite the danger, some Afghans in the southern city of Kandahar - a Karzai stronghold area abounding votes concluded up thrown out for artifice - said they would adopt a runoff to a affiliation government. Karzai is widely expected to prevail in a runoff vote.
Abdur Rahman, who runs a adopted exchange agency in Kandahar, said a runoff would be difficult, but if there is no other option, the government should organize one.
"We abutment a runoff, but a new affiliation government would not be good for Afghanistan," said 46-year-old Rahman, who voted for Karzai. "Karzai already has a coalition. Why would he accomplish any accord with Abdullah or accord him power?"
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Associated Press Writer Noor Khan contributed to this report from Kandahar, Afghanistan.
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