Afghan presidential rivals sign power-sharing deal

The lengthy dispute had put off the selection of a successor to incumbent President Hamid Karzai and raised fears of increased instability in the fragile, war-torn country. But the two rivals embraced after signing a deal for a national unity government in a televised ceremony in the capital, Kabul, on Sunday, CNN reported. Under the agreement, the winning presidential candidate will create by decree the position of chief executive officer for the runner-up. The CEO role will have prime ministerial functions until the constitution can be amended to create a permanent position of prime minister. The deal also calls for the two candidates' teams to share senior government positions equally between them. Final results of the presidential runoff are expected to be announced later Sunday, but Ghani was widely reported to have come first. The political impasse in Afghanistan this year had come as the Taliban continued to mount deadly attacks on high-profile targets and fought fiercely for control of important areas. As the U.S.-led war effort against the militants winds down, most NATO troops are due to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of this year. 'Three months of squabbling' The presidential election was held on April 5, and was followed by a runoff vote in June after the first round proved inconclusive. The election was aimed at bringing about Afghanistan's first democratic transfer of power, but the accusations of fraud and manipulation put that goal in peril. In July, Abdullah and Ghani had come to an agreement, brokered by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, to accept the result of a nationwide audit and form a unity government. But earlier this month, the two candidates showed signs of backing away from the that deal. Kerry described the signing of the deal Sunday as "a moment of extraordinary statesmanship," saying Ghani and Abdullah had "put the people of Afghanistan first." The White House and the U.N. Secretary-General's Special Representative for Afghanistan, Jan Kubis, both expressed support for the new government. But questions remain about how effective the new arrangement is likely to be. "It took three months of squabbling and political infighting to get to this point," Yaroslav Trofimov, the Afghanistan and Pakistan editor of The Wall Street Journal, told CNN. "It's anybody guess how well they will manage to actually govern together, considering all the bad blood."