[originaltext]W: Good evening, listeners. This is BBC. Today, we are very delig

W: Good evening, listeners. This is BBC. Today, we are very delighted to have invited James Dobbins, U.S. special representative for Afghanistan, to tell us the electoral process in Afghanistan currently. Well, James, how are you reading what’s happening in Afghanistan at the moment?
M:(1)We’re concerned about the trend in events. We have been concerned for some time that the electoral process hasn’t been moving forward smoothly. We believe there needs to be a powerful and transparent audit of potentially dishonest ballots and we’re sorry that hasn’t moved forward quickly and substantially enough. We regret the preliminary announcement of results that was made yesterday. We think that was premature given that there are still a number of ballots that need to be examined and there’s not yet a clear agreement on how best to do so. We do believe that...
W: Forgive me for interrupting, James. Can I ask you why you think that announcement was made yesterday?
M:(2)I think it was made because the electoral institutions had previously set that date and they held to it despite advice to the contrary from the UN, from the United States, and from other voices within Afghanistan, and we think that was unfortunate. W:(3)Is there another reason that could be slightly more favorable, that is, they wanted to prepare the ground because if they just came out with one final result at the end of all this, then it can be pretty likely that the loser, whoever it was going to be, was going to complain because they think it is unfair?
M:(4)I think it’s our view that they didn’t have a basis for preparing the ground because there’s such a large number of votes that still need to be examined and that therefore any preliminary result might be more misleading than preparing the ground.
W: In terms now of where this goes, we’ve already heard some very strong, very emotional language from the camp of the man who appears to be on the losing side of all this, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. What have you been saying to him in order to try and calm those feelings?
M: Well, we have heard talk about establishing a parallel presidency.(5)We made clear that the United States and its partners are not in a position to support a divided Afghanistan. That any effort to establish a parallel presidency would make it impossible for the United States and its partners to continue their financial, economic and military support, and that the consequences for the country would be potentially quite terrible. Clearly, this is not something the Afghan population wants. It’s not something they were voting for. And it’s not something that they expect to happen, but it could be the consequences of an ill-considered action.
1. Which aspect of the election event is the interviewee most concerned about?
2. Why was the announcement made yesterday, according to the interviewee?
3. According to the BBC interviewer, why did the electoral institutions want to prepare the ground?
4. What did the interviewee think of the BBC’s reason of preparing the ground?
5. What is the interviewee’s attitude towards establishing a parallel presidency?