Gripped by electoral crisis, Afghanistan needs ‘statesmanship, not brinksmanship’ – UN envoy --- 25 June 2014 – Amidst challenges that are testing Afghanistan’s electoral, institutional and legal frameworks, together with the maturity of its political leaders, the top United Nations official in the country underscored today the vital need for the Afghan political class to act decisively to manage these events and “avoid any slippery slope to civil disorder and instability.” -- Briefing the Security Council in the wake of the fallout from Afghanistan’s 14 June run-off presidential election – meant to pave the way for the country’s first-ever democratic transfer of power but which instead has sparked charges of fraud from one candidate and the departure of a senior electoral official – Special Representative of the Secretary-General Ján Kubiš urged Afghan political leaders to step up their efforts to break the political impasse. -- “How the two presidential candidates and the country's leadership manage these events will be vital to Afghanistan's unity and stability,” he said, referring to Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abduallah and events that occurred since the finalization of the Secretary-General’s latest report on the situation in Afghanistan. -- Mr. Abdullah chose to disengage from the electoral process after the run-off poll, citing institutional bias and massive fraud, in light of high levels of voter turnout in some parts of the country. Mr. Ghani’s camp in turn attributes this to his team’s mobilization efforts. -- The run-off and subsequent electoral gridlock come during the Taliban’s “summer fighting season,” with 530 security incidents recorded on 14 June – just over 250 of those assessed as being directly election related. Mr. Kubiš noted that both candidates have been targeted with violence, including a double suicide attack on Mr. Abdullah’s campaign convoy. -- Mr. Kubiš said the recent resignation of the Independent Election Commission’s (IEC) Chief Electoral Officer would hopefully provide a point for re-entry and in particular lead to discussions between the campaign teams and institutions on strengthening technical checks and balances where voting patterns are claimed to be unusual and in increasing confidence in the credibility of the electoral process and the acceptability of its outcome. -- “The presidential candidates need to immediately engage with one another and the mandated electoral institutions in actively defining solutions to help the process move forward with improved quality and credibility,” he said, underscoring that given rising tensions, including increasing ethnic overtones, the utmost maturity is required, notably by the two presidential candidates. -- Otherwise, said Mr. Kubiš, who is also head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), the risk is a confrontation of the two candidates and their supporters, where the losing side will reject the results and contest their legitimacy, possibly leading to a protracted confrontation with a danger of a slide into violence, which Afghanistan and the wider region, can ill-afford -- “As with elections anywhere in the world, there can ultimately be only one winner. The need now is for statesmanship not brinksmanship,” he declared, calling for calm amongst both candidates' supporters amidst “sharpening, hateful rhetoric of an increasingly inflammatory tone, risking ethnic division.” Most disturbingly, this includes rhetoric evoking memories of the fratricidal conflicts in the 1990s. - More, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=48130&Cr=Afghan&Cr1=