Karzai won’t try to stay in office, says former US envoy

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is unlikely to try to bend the rules to stay in office once his term ends in 2014, former US ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, said on Monday.

“Unless circumstances change dramatically I’m quite confident that President Karzai will not seek to amend the constitution,” Crocker told an audience at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

And the former envoy who left his post in Kabul in July said he was also convinced that Karzai would not try to “find some extra-constitutional mechanism that would allow for either prolongation or his re-election.”

Karzai was re-elected in 2009 in only the second elections to be held since the ousting of the hardline Islamic Taliban poll from Kabul. But his victory was marred by allegations of widespread voting irregularities.

His term ends in 2014, which coincides with the transfer of security responsibilities from a US-led Nato force to Afghan troops, with about 130,000 US-led troops still in the country, fighting a deadly Taliban-led insurgency.

In April, Karzai said he might call an early presidential election to leave enough time for the new government to handle the planned security transition.

But the Western-backed leader has dismissed claims by opponents that he might delay the vote, amending the constitution to allow himself to stay in office.