Afghanistan: Unity Government Effort in Doubt as Afghan Candidate Boycotts Election Audit --- KABUL, Afghanistan — American and United Nations officials scrambled to salvage Afghanistan’s bitterly contested presidential election on Wednesday after one candidate, Abdullah Abdullah, decided to boycott the internationally brokered audit of the vote. -- American diplomats met with Mr. Abdullah in an effort to persuade him to continue negotiations aimed at forming a national unity government, according to aides to Mr. Abdullah. -- Meanwhile, the United Nations announced that it would continue the audit, the most exhaustive ever supervised by the world body, without the presence of observers for either of the candidates. -- After Mr. Abdullah’s team pulled out of an observer role in the audit, United Nations officials asked observers for his opponent, Ashraf Ghani, to also pull out, in order to maintain an appearance of impartiality in the process. The Ghani campaign agreed, and after a pause Wednesday morning, the ballot review resumed in the afternoon. -- Examination of the ballots and decisions on whether to invalidate them would be conducted by the Independent Election Commission, with independent observers overseen by the United Nations, according to the deputy head of the United Nations mission here, Nicholas Haysom. -- Mr. Haysom said the United Nations was still considering objections made to the audit process by Mr. Abdullah’s side, but said it was not possible to comply with his ultimatum demanding immediate changes to the process. -- “Self-evidently, candidates cannot set the rules for their own election, and this was accepted by both of the candidates in their agreement the 12th of July,” Mr. Haysom said, referring to the initial deal brokered with the help of Secretary of State John Kerry to establish the audit and to form a unity government.