Afghan election standoff ends as candidates agree to complete audit of votes

The Afghan presidential election standoff was ended after two days of intense talks between two rival candidates and visiting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Kerry during a joint press conference late on Saturday with the two runners announced that all ballots cast during June 14 presidential runoff will be audited as the two runners, Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai and Abdullah Abdullah, had reached an agreement to audit all votes and, whoever the victor, to form a unity government.

"First, with the respect to the election both candidates have committed to participate in and to abide by the results of the largest, most comprehensive audit. Every single ballot that was cast will be audited 100 percent," the top U.S. diplomat said.

"This is the strongest possible signal by the both candidates to restore the legitimacy on the process and the Afghan democracy, " he said.

He said the two candidates and President Hamid Karzai are committed to compromise. "They have supported constitutional process."

This audit will be conducted in accordance with a highest international standard, Kerry told reporters at the briefing also attended by UN secretary-general's special envoy for Afghanistan Jan Kubis.

"Second, the audit will be carried out in Kabul, and will begin in 24 hours. It will start with the ballot boxes which (are) currently located here, and ballot boxes in provinces will be transported to Kabul by ISAF (International Security Assistance Forces) and secured by ISAF and Afghan national security forces," Kerry said.

Afghanistan's third presidential election since 2001 was held on April 5 where eight politicians contested the race, with two front-runners -- former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah and former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai -- left to go for the runoff.

The preliminary results of the June 14 presidential runoff announced by the election commission on July 7 showed Ashraf Ghani garnered 56.44 percent of more than 8 million votes while Abdullah secured 43.56 percent.

The controversial polls had faced a deadlock after Abdullah, who bagged 45 percent of 7 million votes in the April 5 polls, as against 31.6 percent by Ghani Ahmadzai, has accused the election commission of siding with Ghani Ahmadzai, saying any decision of the election body is unacceptable unless the clean votes are filtered from the fake ones.

The top U.S. diplomat also said that since the audit process would take a couple of weeks, "we request to postpone the inauguration process" of new government initially set on Aug. 2.

The audit will be conducted by the UN mission in the country -- United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), according to Kerry. "It is the hope that all Afghans will now join together and support this process and build a better future for their nation," Kerry said.

"United Nations is here to support, provide assistance and this is what we will do...but to make it a success I would like to appeal notably to international observers, organizations, to the European Union, to the national democracy institute and other organizations to send as quickly as possible observers with their teams who are here, this support of the international community is needed to provide capability to this process of audit," Kubis, who also heads UNAMA, said at the same briefing.

Abdullah and Ghani also made short speeches before shaking hands and embracing each other.