US envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad is helping to persuade President Hamid Karzai’s main opponents in Saturday’s disputed presidential poll to drop their threatened refusal to recognise the result, candidates said. Counting is now expected to begin late tomorrow, because of complaints over voter fraud from all of Karzai’s rivals, and could take three weeks to complete.

Yunus Qanuni and Mohammad Mohaqiq, respectively the strongest candidates from the Tajik and Hazara ethnic minorities, both held meetings with Khalilzad over the weekend, Afghan and western officials said. The European Union’s envoy to Afghanistan, Francesc Vendrell, has also been meeting candidates to defuse the controversy.

<B>Irregularities in the voting</B>

“Qanuni and Mohaqiq have shown willingness to drop the boycott demand after meetings with Khalilzad,” said a candidate who requested anonymity. “Khalilzad urged them to do so in return for accommodating them somehow in the future government.” Officials in the Qanuni camp were unwilling to confirm any change of heart by their leader.

But Mohaqiq and Massouda Jalal, the lone woman candidate, have already said they were happy to go along with the findings of an investigation into voting irregularities, while Qanuni was moving closer to that position. Karzai was handpicked by Washington to head a transitional government after the fall of the Taliban at the hands of US-led forces in late 2001.

From the ethnic Pashtun majority, Karzai was always favourite to win the election, the first in Afghanistan’s history in which people have chosen their leader in a direct, secret ballot. But the charges of vote fraud by Karzai’s rivals, many of whom command powerful private militias, will make his path difficult. Karzai is the favourite of the international community, which is keen for the election to be widely accepted as legitimate. Western donors have pumped aid into Afghanistan after the collapse of the Taliban and the United Nations has been closely involved in the ballot.

Sayed Abdul Hadi Dabir, however, said several fellow candidates were being bought off with promises of positions of influence. “Some of the recalcitrants have joined Karzai’s side just for positions in the government,” Dabir said.Dabir said he and several other veteran candidates such as Abdul Satar Serat and Hamayon Shah Asifi, plus ethnic Uzbek General Abdul Rashid Dostum, still viewed the vote as illegitimate. “We call for fresh elections and do not accept this ballot, for this imposes an American-backed regime on Afghanistan,” Dabir said.

Khalilzad, President George Bush’s Afghan-born representative in Kabul, is often criticised for interfering in Afghan affairs, and is seen as Karzai’s close confidant, but Western officials said candidates were approaching him for advice. Karzai is dependent on the presence of 18,000 US-led troops and more than 8,000 international peacekeepers for Afghanistan’s security, while a national army and police force are built up and private militias are disarmed.

Dostum, Qanuni and Mohaqiq have the backing of powerful ethnic factions who resent Karzai’s policy of disarming militias run by warlords. The main reasons Karzai’s rivals have called into question the legitimacy of the vote are a mix-up over the indelible ink pens used at polling stations to prevent multiple voting and accusations the international community is biased toward him.

<B>Sayed Salahuddin</B>