Afghanistan: Trailing candidates in Afghan election hold power in deciding next president --- KABUL — Some of the influential politicians who competed in Afghanistan’s recent — but still undecided — presidential election have begun to accept their failure to win. And with that acknowledgment, their power has grown. -- It appears likely that the April 5 election will produce a runoff between Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah. That has left the six remaining candidates to decide whom they will endorse — a choice that could determine the next president. -- Ghani and Abdullah have begun quests to garner that support, crisscrossing Kabul to recruit their former rivals and, with them, the voters whose loyalty they command. In a country still torn by ethnic and political tensions, coalition building is as crucial as it is delicate. -- “They ask, and we will decide,” said candidate Abdurrab Rasul Sayyaf, a former mujahideen leader who is not expected to win a significant portion of votes but wields significant power, particularly in traditional ethnic Pashtun communities. -- For now, the public’s focus remains on the results of the first round and the Afghan election commission’s ability to resolve hundreds of formal complaints of fraud. The commission is due to assess those complaints and release official results in mid-May, and it’s unlikely a second round would take place for several weeks afterward. -- But already, there are early signs that the six candidates are trying to come together as a single, powerful bloc. Earlier this week, they met as a group at Sayyaf’s office. -- Publicly, each of the eight presidential candidates has expressed confidence that he might still win the election if fraud is eliminated. But several have quietly conceded that the race is between Ghani and Abdullah, and it’s now time to go about the complicated effort of choosing sides without causing harmful political or social rifts. -- “Who we decide to support will be crucial,” said a top member of Zalmay Rassoul’s campaign team. -- Those decisions are part of a larger effort to build a coalition that would resolve the election peacefully, either before or after an electoral runoff. -- A runoff between the two top finishers is legally mandated if no candidate garners more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round, an outcome that looks likely based on preliminary results. According to those results, gleaned from less than 10 percent of overall ballots, Abdullah received 41.9 percent of the vote and Ghani 37.6 percent. Rassoul had 9.8 percent to Sayyaf’s 5.1 percent.