Afghans elect their president tomorrow with Karzai as favorite

Kabul, 19 Aug 2009. - Afghanistan held tomorrow, Thursday, the second presidential election since the U.S. invasion and the fall late 2001 the Taliban regime, who have called for a boycott and today have become sowing campaign of violence with assault to a bank in Kabul and an assassination attempt in Kandahar.
According to the Afghan Interior Ministry, the assault to the bank was resolved with the death of three insurgents at the hands of police, three of whose officers had three wounded.
In addition, a district chief and a tribal leader died and another person was injured by an exploding bomb their vehicle in the southern province of Kandahar, said a police source told Efe.
During the campaign, the Taliban have stepped up attacks on both foreign forces as Afghan authorities, in an attempt to deter at 17 million Afghans called to the polls tomorrow to elect a president and members of provincial councils.
To counter the Taliban boycott and "ensure broad participation" elections, the Afghan government did not hesitate now, when we celebrate Independence Day, to adopt censorship by prohibiting the dissemination of news about "any incident of violence" during voting hours.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai (an ethnic Pashtun majority in the country), the favorites according to a survey by the American Institute IRI, which promises a second round of the Tajik Abdullah Abdullah, former foreign minister and former deputy commander of the Afghan who led the anti-Taliban resistance and was killed days before the 11-S, Ahmed Shah Massoud.
According to the poll, the big surprise of the elections could be given by the Hazara (Shia Muslim ethnic group located primarily in eastern Afghanistan) Ramazan Bashardost, who is running from a simple tent outside parliament and in the third figure of intent vote, ahead of former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani.
Of the 41 original candidates, two of them women, a dozen have gone to support Karzai, who at the last minute has also attracted the support of the Uzbek Rashid Dostum, a controversial leader of the northern Afghan accused of war crimes and betraying all his former partners.
With some 100,000 soldiers of NATO or U.S. committed to ensuring a safe environment for weeks leading vote-in special operations were carried out in the Taliban strongholds in the southern province of Helmand, security is the great challenge of this election.
Karzai seeks reelection to a subject people increasingly to higher levels of violence, more than 2,100 civilians killed in military action in 2008 - and it remains among the poorest in the world, with one third of the population (7.3 million) threatened by hunger, as reported today Oxfam.
Oxfam joined critical voices against the corruption that has characterized the mandate of Karzai, who has prevented aid gets to its rightful recipients, and demanded "major reforms" to the future government to prevent further squandering funds.
Opponents of Afghan President also questioned the policy of alliances and its collusion with various sectors to ensure power, particularly with the reviled Dostum but also with other Afghan leaders, including Mohammed Fahim and Ismail Khan.
The BBC helped yesterday, Tuesday, to suspicions of fraud to disseminate its own investigation found that attempts to sell hundreds of voter cards and purchasing support for certain candidates.
"There has been traditional fraud in Afghanistan and this year there will be audits to detect it. The Afghan election commission has international support and I know that your preparation for the elections, if not flawless, stays close, "said Efe Maria Espinosa, the observation mission of the EU.
Analysts point out that after almost eight years of effort in Afghanistan, the international community can not afford failed elections and is willing to be benevolent to the Afghan electoral process, which takes place without any census.
Bashardost said he did not doubt that it has done everything possible to encourage Karzai, with induction attempts to vote as the recent publication of the U.S. Institute survey that gives the victor.
Until September 3 will not be known the provisional results of the election, which shall be final 17. If you had to hold a second round, this would be in October

Hamid Karzai seeks to re-edit command with a comfortable lead

Kabul, 14 Aug 2009. - Installed in a comfortable lead over its rivals, the Afghan President Hamid Karzai, aims to defend his mandate in the elections on 20 by Flag of the dialogue with more moderate Taliban and the country pending the promised development.
Karzai, 51, has been leading Afghanistan almost from the fall of the Taliban in 2001, first leading a transitional government and later elected as president by the citizens, in 2004.
In the upcoming elections, the current president wants to win re-election over his critics, who accuse him of tolerating corruption, relying on the old "warlords" and be unable to develop the institutions.
So far, Karzai has come pacts with the leaders of different ethnic minorities, such as "warlords" Ismail Khan (Tajik) and Rashid Dostum (Uzbek), and has incorporated his nomination to the powerful Mohammed Fahim, a controversial general and a former defense minister in his government and now wants to be his vice president.
With Fahim, Karzai seeks to ensure the support of northern Tajiks, the second largest ethnic group in the country, while he tries to shore up the vote of the Pashtuns in the south and east against the boycott promoted by Taliban insurgents.
His most important punch line is just an offer of dialogue to more moderate Taliban, in order that these lay down their arms and join to building Afghan democracy at a time of expansion of the insurgency.
The pact would be a new twist to the political career of this leading moderate Pashtun, who during the Soviet occupation (1979-1989) served as an advisor to the mujahideen and then supported the Taliban thinking, like many, that would bring stability to the country.
The close relations that the latter had with the Pakistani secret services led him, however, to distance themselves from the fundamentalists and began to organize opposition abroad since before the 11-S.
With the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, Karzai was decided to fight against the Taliban and starred in an epic entrance on the south accompanied by a handful of followers several motorcycle riding, as has the writer Ahmed Rashid in his book " A Descent Into Chaos. "
And then, chosen to lead the country's interim government, the president still managed to maintain a precarious balance between the different factions, ethnic groups and tribes of the country, still central to the political system.
While domestic policy has been criticized by liberals for being slow in its reforms and the prevailing corruption, the Afghan people value their sentences distressed civilian deaths at the hands of international troops in the country.
Reviled by his opponents derided as "mayor of Kabul" because of limited control over the country, Karzai is yet to be popular among Afghans under the last two surveys known, which attributed a 44 and 45 percent respectively, decided to vote in presidential elections.
With a twenty point lead over its nearest rival, Karzai faces the future of Afghanistan as favorite comfortable in his role as "father of the nation", as it is termed some of his election posters.
"If you vote today Karzai, Karzai guarantee your tomorrow "promises Afghans in their electoral slogan.
Populism aside, the real merit of the current president has been his move to occupy the center of the Afghan crossroads: between Pashtuns and Tajiks, between foreign troops and the public, between moderate Taliban and the small liberal sector.
They say of him, those who know him, that feels so comfortable in a suit and tie like a turban and robe