Afghanistan: Amid Election Impasse, Calls in Afghanistan for an Interim Government --- A coterie of powerful Afghan government ministers and officials with strong ties to the security forces are threatening to seize power if an election impasse that has paralyzed the country is not resolved soon. -- Though it is unusual to telegraph plans for what could amount to a coup — though no one is calling it that — the officials all stressed that they hoped the mere threat of forming an interim government would persuade the country’s rival presidential candidates, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, to make the compromises needed to end the crisis. -- After weeks of quietly discussing the prospect of imposing a temporary government, officials within the Karzai government said the best way out of a crisis that had emboldened the Taliban, weakened an already struggling economy and left many here deeply pessimistic about the country’s democratic future, might well be some form of interim government, most likely run by a committee. -- “But what will happen if the legal institutions, if they are not working?” asked Rangin Dafdar Spanta, national security adviser to President Hamid Karzai, though he declined to explicitly back any move toward an interim government and insisted a solution to the crisis must be in line with Afghanistan’s Constitution. -- It often happens that when power is seized during a political crisis, as in Thailand or Egypt, those taking charge argue that the step is essential to restore order and protect democracy in the long run. That is also the case here, where such a move is being advertised as a last resort to save democracy. It could also effectively discard the results of a presidential runoff election that, until it was derailed by allegations of fraud, had been promoted as a historic event in a country that never had a democratic transfer of power. -- “I see some people are really serious about it,” said a senior Afghan official. He said fears of a repeat of the civil war that engulfed Afghanistan in the years after the withdrawal of Soviet forces in 1989 were driving the discussions. -- “It’s not only tactical, it’s real, and it’s because the memory of the crisis years ago in the 1990s is still fresh, and they don’t want to go to that,” the official said. -- That official and others interviewed in recent days spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing plans that could be considered seditious. The fact that they discussed the plans in advance suggests that they are using the threat of a coup to achieve political ends, not simply plotting in secret to execute one. -- The officials said they believed they would have the backing of Afghanistan’s army, police and intelligence corps. Though no concrete plans are in place, several officials said a committee would most likely be formed to run Afghanistan and that representatives of Mr. Abdullah and Mr. Ghani would be asked to join. Both candidates have dismissed the idea of an interim government. -- Many Afghans are liable to view any step to an interim government as a power grab by the men who surrounded Mr. Karzai for the last 12 years who may be seeking an excuse to preserve their power. -- The United States and European countries are loath to see Afghan officials make an end-run around Afghanistan’s Constitution, which would call into question the lives lost and billions spent by the West in Afghanistan. Yet, in the two months since the runoff, the Abdullah and Ghani campaigns have proved unable or unwilling to compromise.