Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/in-afghanistan-runoff-election-could-strengthen-democracy Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Afghan President Hamid Karzai bowed to pressure Tuesday and agreed to a runoff election on Nov. 7. The move came as the Obama administration debates the future of U.S. strategy. Gwen Ifill talks to experts for insight. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. GWEN IFILL: For more on the elections in Afghanistan and the deliberations in Washington, we turn to Robert Neumann, a career Foreign Service officer who served as ambassador to Kabul during the Bush administration, and Alexander Thier. He served on the commission that drafted Afghanistan's constitution. He's now a senior adviser at the U.S. Institute for Peace.Welcome to you, both.President Obama today called this — quote — "an important precedent for Afghanistan's new democracy."Mr. Ambassador, how so? RONALD NEUMANN: Well, because you had a bad dispute. You could easily have had this go even worse. There were a lot of rumors that Karzai might not accept the ruling of the international group. And, in the end, they did accept it.You had a lot of fraud in the election. There's no question that it came out it was very messy. But I would also remind us that the results are in part — or the lack of a final victory is in part the system, where you have to have over 50 percent.And it's useful to remember, just by comparison, that, in President Clinton's first electoral victory, he had 43 percent, which is less than what is the 48 percent that has been left to Karzai after they have thrown out the fraudulent vote.I'm not saying that there wasn't lots of fraud. There was tons of fraud. And it's good to get past it. But it's also good to remember that he had a pretty solid backing as well. GWEN IFILL: I want to apologize. I called you Robert Neumann.And it's Ronald Neumann, of course. RONALD NEUMANN: That's all right.But my father was Robert. And he was an ambassador in Afghanistan, too. So… GWEN IFILL: So, there's — this has happened to you before. I apologize. RONALD NEUMANN: Yes. GWEN IFILL: Mr. Thier, when we talk Hamid Karzai's concession today, or whatever that was, did he have any choice but to agree to this runoff?J. ALEXANDER THIER, director, Afghanistan and Pakistan, U.S. Institute of Peace: I think he really didn't. What we learned in the last few weeks, and particularly days, was that the scale of fraud was enormous.They threw out 1.25 million votes, which is a lot of fraud. And I think that President Karzai really had the choice of either agreeing to a runoff or trying to find some sort of political accommodation with his rival to move past this process.Ultimately, what's most important to the Afghans and I think to us is that the outcome of this election process is legitimate. And it would not have been legitimate if Karzai had fought the findings of the Electoral Complaints Commission and tried to stay on board.