The Times
Jerome Starkey in Kabul

President Karzai caved in to intense international pressure yesterday and agreed to compete in a second round run-off to decide Afghanistan’s fraud-ridden presidential elections.

Mr Karzai, after days spent threatening to boycott the findings of an inquiry into vote rigging, finally accepted a decision by the country’s two electoral bodies to slash his tally by nearly a million votes, leaving him with 49.67 per cent, just 0.33 per cent below the threshold for an outright win. The run-off is scheduled for November 7.

Looking subdued and unimpressed by the praise heaped upon him by three ambassadors, the head of the UN in Afghanistan and the US senator John Kerry, Mr Karzai said: “It is going to be an historic period. Fourteen days from today the people of Afghanistan will go to the polling stations again.” (Read more)