Abdullah deadline puts Afghan election in peril

The presidential contender, Abdullah Abdullah on Monday issued another ultimatum over the disputed election result, threatening to withdraw from all efforts to negotiate a solution to the deepening political crisis.
Abdullah claims that fraud cheated him of victory in the June 14 election, and fears have risen of a return to unrest of the 1990s civil war after his supporters called on him to form a “parallel government”.
Abdullah’s spokesman Fazel Aqa Hussain Sancharaki said his team was on the brink of abandoning both parts of the deal — potentially plunging Afghanistan’s first democratic transfer of power into further turmoil.
“Our patience is running out, any announcement of results made by the fraudulent election commission will be rejected by us,” said Sancharaki.
“We are setting this deadline — that if tomorrow our logical demands of transparent auditing and an honest political process are not met, we will completely boycott the whole process.”
NATO members had repeatedly stressed that a new president should attend the summit to prove that the country is becoming a functioning state after more than a decade of military and civilian aid.