[Tolo News] U.S. Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry
Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a
lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State...
's trip to Kabul to mediate talks between the two presidential candidates ended the election deadlock. After all, one of the agreements made between the two presidential hopefuls is that a national unity government would be formed between them no matter who wins the election. However,
ars longa, vita brevis...
just a day removed from the talks, there already appears to be some disagreement over what exactly a "national unity government" means.
Abdullah Abdullah
... the former foreign minister of the Northern Alliance government, advisor to Masood, and candidate for president against Karzai. Dr. Abdullah was born in Kabul and is half Tadjik and half Pashtun...
's campaign team has said that a national unity government means a shared government where both candidates will have a prominent role.
"National unity government can be called shared government, our campaign team will never want the creation of a coalition government, but we will accept shared government," Abdullah's campaign front man Said Fazel Agha Sancharaki said. He did not go into any detail as to what are the exact distinctions between a "coalition government" and a "shared government".
In response, Ashraf Ghani-Ahmadzai's campaign team has said that the national unity government means that the losing candidates will participate legally in the framework of the future government.
"The candidate who has not received the majority of votes can participate in the upcoming government through legal ways," explained Azita Refat, the front man for Ghani-Ahmadzai's team.
Sources close to the negotiations that took place over the course of Friday and Saturday, and have been heralded as successfully ending the election crisis, have said that the audit of votes that the candidates agreed to will surely result in the victory of one candidate over the other, and that the losing candidate will have a role in the next government, likely in the executive branch. However that has not yet been officialy confirmed.
Meanwhile,
...back at the pond, Gloria slowly backed away from the eight-foot bull frog. If the creature croaked she would surely be deafened...
legal analysts have said that the creation of a national unity government does in fact amount to a coalition government.
"I think we have had national unity before, I do not see any difference between a coalition government and what the candidates have called a national unity government," legal analyst Nasrullah Stanekzai told TOLOnews. "If they had used the term, 'Creation of government for National Unity Consolidation' instead of 'Creation of National Unity Government', it would have been better," he added.
Despite the apparent differences in interpretation of the terms of their agreement regarding power-sharing after the election, it is indisputable that the negotiations this weekend, is no small part thanks to the presence of Mr. Kerry, moved the process forward, and hopefully for the better.