After all the foreign blood and money spent on trying to turn a poor, wrecked country into a unified state and a functioning democracy, much has been riding on the drawn-out presidential election. Yet this week the prospect loomed of Afghanistan unravelling, as the apparent runner-up in the election, Abdullah Abdullah, cried foul over the preliminary results of a June runoff released on July 7th. Dr Abdullah says that the victory of Ashraf Ghani, a technocrat who has the support of the outgoing president, Hamid Karzai, is the result of ballot-stuffing. His spokesman decried it as a "coup". Dr Abdullah threatened to declare a parallel government. As The Economist went to press, Dr Abdullah, a former foreign minister who was the victim of electoral fraud in 2009, had not exercised that option, which would tip the country into chaos. But concern in America is palpable. Its president, Barack Obama, telephoned Dr Abdullah and urged him against any rash declaration. Its secretary of state, John Kerry, is hurrying to Kabl, the capital.
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