KABUL, Afghanistan -- The two candidates for president of Afghanistan have agreed on a power-sharing deal that will give the losing candidate substantial influence in the next government, initialing the U.S.-brokered deal Saturday night and promising to sign it at a formal ceremony today.
The deal promises an end to the tumultuous, 5-month-long aftermath of the Afghan presidential elections, although previous settlements have repeatedly collapsed at the last minute despite the candidates' promises.
Under the deal, the top vote-getter, Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, would become president but would grant significant powers to the loser, Abdullah Abdullah, making Abdullah effectively a prime minister, according to a draft of the four-page agreement obtained by The New York Times and authenticated by Western diplomats and campaign officials.
U.N. and Afghan election officials have spent weeks auditing the runoff results after allegations of vote fraud, a common occurrence over Afghanistan's past two presidential elections.
The agreement on forming a national unity government was completed last Sunday, with the two candidates planning to sign it Tuesday. At the last minute, however, Abdullah said he would sign only if the results of an audit of the election, determining the final tally for each candidate, were not publicly released. He has insisted that the results were so tainted by fraud that they should never be made public.
President Hamid Karzai excused himself from a memorial ceremony honoring a deceased former president Saturday to prepare for what is hoped to be the final agreement on a national unity government.
"If you give me permission, I want to leave and prepare for another meeting in which our jihadi leaders, elders and candidates will attend and we will have good news for the Afghan nation, God willing," Karzai told the gathering.
An Abdullah campaign official, Western diplomats and Karzai's spokesman, Aimal Faizi, all confirmed that the deal had been initialed and would be formally signed today.
"The main sticking point is the announcement of the results," said Abdullah's campaign spokesman Muslim Saadat. "The results of the [Independent Election Commission] will not have legitimacy since the audit failed to separate fraudulent votes from legitimate ones."
Later he confirmed that both candidates had reached agreement, but he did not explain how the issue of releasing the vote totals had been resolved.
A senior Obama administration official said an important breakthrough came Wednesday when Secretary of State John Kerry telephoned Abdullah during a meeting with 30 of his aides, and addressed them all over a speaker phone.
"If you don't come to agreement now, today, the possibilities for Afghanistan will become very difficult, if not dangerous," said Kerry, according to the account by the U.S. official. "I really need to emphasize to you that if you do not have an agreement, if you do not move to a unity government, the United States will not be able to support Afghanistan."
The official said "the purpose of the call was to drive home to Abdullah's more militant supporters that the deal in front of them was the best deal they were going to get and that there would be consequences in rejecting it."
Still, as recently as Saturday, aides to Abdullah said he would never agree to the deal if the election commission released the results of its audit of the vote, and the totals for each candidate. The candidates were expected to formally sign the deal at noon today at the presidential palace, the U.S. official said.
The two candidates had been negotiating a deal that would divide responsibilities between the president and the newly created office of chief executive. Those talks have been dragging on for weeks despite two in-person visits by Kerry and many follow-up phone calls.
Ahmadzai is believed to be leading in the official vote count with roughly 55 percent.
The U.S. has been pushing for a resolution so the next president can sign a security agreement that would allow about 10,000 U.S. forces to remain in the country after combat operations wrap up at the end of the year.
For many of the millions of Afghans who voted in the original April 6 election, and then in the runoff election June 14, withholding the results would be a bitter disappointment -- especially for voters who dipped their index fingers in indelible ink to show they had voted, knowing full well that could rouse the ire of insurgents who had warned voters to boycott the election.
Sultan Ahmad was among 11 men in Herat province's Koshke Kohna District whose fingers were cut off by the Taliban as punishment the day after the June vote. They were caught because the indelible ink that prevents repeat voting takes three days to wear off.
Even if the election results are announced, many Afghan voters will have risked their well-being without a true democratic decision.
"They are shamelessly stepping over people's votes and cutting a deal to share power," said an Afghan senator, Belqis Roshan, criticizing both candidates. "Those whose fingers were chopped off did not fear from any threats and bravely went to cast their votes. Now their pride is broken since their will and their votes will be compromised by this deal."
The agreement also creates a council of ministers, headed by the chief executive and including two deputy CEOs and all Cabinet ministers.
"The Council of Ministers will implement the executive affairs of the government," the agreement states. "The CEO will be responsible for managing the Cabinet's implementation of government policies, and will report on progress to the president directly and in the Cabinet."
Another clause calls for "parity in the selection of personnel between the President and the CEO at the level of head of key security and economic institutions, and independent directorates."
Noor Ahmad Noor, spokesman for the Independent Election Commission, had said the election results would be released publicly today regardless of negotiations taking place between the candidates.
"It is nothing to do with us at the IEC what the candidates are doing," he said.
Information for this article was contributed by Jason Straziuso and Rahim Faiez of The Associated Press; and by Rod Nordland and Jawad Sukhanyar of The New York Times.
A Section on 09/21/2014