Daily Times

KABUL: Afghan Chief Executive Dr Abdullah Abdullah has castigated President Ashraf Ghani as unfit for the presidency, in a public outburst highlighting bitter internal divisions that threaten their power-sharing agreement.

Abdullah’s comments come ahead of a September deadline for the government to honour the fragile agreement signed after the fraud-tainted presidential election in 2014, which both leaders claimed to have won. By then the government is expected to enact sweeping election reforms and amend the constitution to create the position of the chief executive for Abdullah.

Observers say that the deadline is unlikely to be met, effectively tipping Afghanistan into a political crisis. “Electoral reforms were one of the promises made when the national unity government was formed. Why weren’t these reforms brought?” Abdullah told a small gathering in Kabul late Thursday.

“Mr president, over a period of three months you do not have time to see your chief executive face-to-face for even an hour or two? What do you spend your time on? “There are arguments in every government but if someone does not have patience for discussion, then he is unfit for the presidency.”

The acrimony comes as the Taliban are threatening to overrun Lashkar Gah, capital of the strategic poppy-growing southern province of Helmand. Abdullah also accused Ghani of monopolising power and not consulting him over key government appointments.

Divisions between the two leaders are an open secret in Kabul, but Abdullah’s public outburst is a prelude to what analysts are calling political fireworks if the agreement brokered by US Secretary of State John Kerry is not honoured. Aside from election reforms, under the agreement the government is also expected to hold parliamentary elections by the end of September. Political opposition groups, including former president Hamid Karzai, are mounting pressure to hold a grand assembly of elders from around Afghanistan to decide the government’s legitimacy.

“The national unity government deal is in danger,” Jawed Kohistani, a Kabul-based political analyst, told AFP. “Electoral reforms, parliamentary elections, loya jirga (grand assembly of elders) will almost definitely not happen anytime soon. This could plunge the government into crisis.” The potential crisis could destabilise the government at a time when it is struggling to rein in an emboldened Taliban insurgency.