Kerry faces uphill battle to defuse Afghan election standoff --- (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will arrive to a sceptical audience in Afghanistan this week to try to resolve a deepening crisis over a disputed presidential election which has stirred ethnic tensions in the fragile country. -- Afghanistan has plunged into political chaos in recent months as a protracted election process to pick a successor to President Hamid Karzai has run into a deadlock between two leading candidates, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani. --- Preliminary results from the June 14 second-round run-off put Ghani, a former World Bank official, in the lead with 56.4 percent of the vote, but Abdullah has rejected the count and his aides have threatened to set up an alternative administration. -- Ghani's camp, confident in its victory, is wary of Kerry's mediation efforts, while Abdullah, who has alleged widespread fraud in the vote, welcomes the initiative. -- "I don’t know what he can do," said Abbas Noyan, a spokesman for Ghani’s camp. "Secretary Kerry will come and talk with both candidates and see what he can do. I don’t think he has a road plan for this. Without a road map it is very difficult to solve this problem." -- The United States, Afghanistan's biggest foreign donor, is in the process of withdrawing its forces from the country after 12 years of fighting Taliban insurgents, and it is unclear what leverage Kerry would have in resolving deep-seated rivalries. -- Speaking to reporters at the end of annual high-level U.S.-China talks, Kerry made no mention of the Kabul trip but said he had discussed the situation with all sides. -- "I have been in touch several times with both candidates, as well as President Karzai," he said in Beijing. -- "We would encourage both for them to not raise expectations with their supporters, to publicly demonstrate respect for the accountability process and also to show critical statesmanship and leadership at a time when Afghanistan obviously needs it." - More, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/10/us-afghanistan-usa-idUSKBN0FF0QU20140710