KABUL: Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah has agreed to rejoin an audit of the votes, the United Nations said on Sunday, after tense negotiations to rescue the election amid a prolonged dispute over fraud.

The country’s first democratic transfer of power has been engulfed in fraud allegations, undermining international hopes that a smooth election would help vindicate the costly US-led military and civilian aid effort since 2001.

Mr Abdullah’s representatives refused to attend the recount on Sunday due to disagreements over how votes would be judged fraudulent or clean — throwing the election into further chaos.

But a deal was finalised later in the day, averting an imminent collapse of the process to choose President Hamid Karzai’s successor as Nato combat troops wind down their 13-year war against the Taliban.

Mr Abdullah’s team “informed the United Nations that it will... resume its participation in the audit process tomorrow,” the UN said in a statement on Sunday evening.

More than eight million votes were cast on June 14, with Mr Abdullah quickly lodging complaints that “industrial-scale” fraud had denied him victory over poll rival Ashraf Ghani.

The US ambassador in Kabul hailed Mr Abdullah’s decision to rejoin the audit as a major step forward, adding that he expected the new Afghan president to be inaugurated at the end of August.

“It is very welcome news,” Ambassador James Cunningham said. “A lot of work has been done... so that the audit can go forward at a rapidly accelerated pace in the next couple of days.

“We hope very much that will happen starting tomorrow... with an outcome to be produced in the next coming weeks.”

The candidates’ spokesmen were not immediately available for comment.

The election battle between Mr Abdullah, a former anti-Taliban resistance fighter, and Mr Ghani, an ex-World Bank economist, has threatened to spark a spiral of instability as foreign troops pull out and violence increases nationwide.

After Mr Abdullah rejected preliminary results that named Mr Ghani as the easy winner, US Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Kabul and persuaded the two candidates to agree to the audit to sift out fraudulent votes.

Mr Kerry’s intervention quashed growing fears that Mr Abdullah was about to set up a “parallel government”, but the UN-supervised audit triggered another outbreak of disagreements.

Mr Abdullah’s team also alleged on Sunday that second Vice President Karim Khalili had been caught on tape saying that President Karzai was working illegally in favour of Mr Ghani.

Mr Karzai has vowed to stay neutral in the election.

“We hope that the two candidates will have an understanding that further delay is not in the interest of the country,” Mr Karzai’s spokesman Aimal Faizi said, adding the audit result was now due by August 25.

“The delay has had a negative impact on the economy, on the security situation, on public opinion,” he said. “Further delays could be very dangerous for the country.”

The first-round vote in April and the June run-off were both hailed for their high turnouts and lack of major militant attacks, but the fraud allegations soon undermined a burst of optimism over Afghanistan’s prospects.

Mr Abdullah believes he was also cheated of victory in the 2009 election when President Karzai retained power.

Mr Karzai, who has ruled since the Taliban were ousted in 2001, is barred from standing for a third term in office.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2014