By PATRICK QUINN and RAHIM FAIEZ
Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s brother Abdul Qayyom Karzai registers his candidacy in next year’s presidential election at the independent election commission office in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2013. A slew of political heavyweights, along with the Afghan president’s brother and a number of former warlords, will take part in next year’s elections for the country’s top office in a critical vote that that could determine the future course of the country and the level of foreign involvement in Afghanistan after 12 years of war. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A slew of political heavyweights, along with the Afghan president’s brother and a number of former warlords, will take part in next year’s election for top office in a critical vote that that could determine the future course of Afghanistan and the level of foreign involvement here after 12 years of war.
The candidacies ended weeks of speculation over who will aspire to replace President Hamid Karzai, who has essentially run the country since the Oct. 7, 2001 invasion that ousted the Taliban. Karzai is not entitled to run for a third consecutive term in the April 5 elections, but is expected to back at least one of the candidates — his former Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul, despite the fact that his businessman brother Qayyum Karzai is also running for president.
As registrations opened earlier in the day, a bomb killed four U.S. soldiers in the south, military and Afghan officials said, the latest casualties among foreign troops on the eve of the 12th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of the country. The conflict has developed into an insurgency that shows no signs of abatement and a war that has become largely forgotten in the United States and among its coalition allies, despite continued casualties suffered by their forces on the ground.
The contenders are a mix of Afghanistan’s past and current power players, including some warlords with a tainted history, a couple of technocrats and some complete political outsiders. All, however, come from Afghan elite that has to one degree or another shaped the country over the past 12 years.
By the end of the day and after a mad scramble by candidates, hundreds of supporters and heavily armed bodyguards, 27 presidential candidates had registered for the first independent vote organized by Afghanistan without direct foreign assistance.
The U.S.-led international military coalition had earlier said four of its service members were killed in the south, and a military official confirmed all were Americans killed by an “improvised explosive device.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
Their deaths bring the toll among foreign forces to 132 this year, of which 102 are from the United States. At least 2,146 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan as a result of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to an Associated Press count. They are part of a total of nearly 3,390 coalition forces that have died during the conflict.
The attack came as Afghan security forces take over the brunt of the fighting after the coalition handed over security responsibilities for the country earlier this summer. This year, an average of least 100 Afghan soldiers and police has died each week.
The insurgency has tried to take advantage of the withdrawal of foreign forces to regain territory around the country. There are currently about 87,000 coalition troops in Afghanistan, including around 52,000 Americans. That number is expected to be halved by February, with U.S. numbers going down to about 31,000.
The April 5 vote will help determine the success or failure of all those years of U.S.-led military and political intervention in the country.
All the candidates have tried to shape tickets that attempt to unify an ethnically fractious political scene marked by patronage and alliances among the elite — a group that includes warlords and tribal elders who can marshal votes among the country’s various ethnic groups. The population of 31 million is roughly 42 percent Pashtun, 27 percent Tajik, 9 percent Hazara, and 9 percent Uzbek along with other, smaller factions. The Taliban are predominantly Pashtun.
Candidates declare tickets that include two vice presidents and will be reviewed by the Independent Electoral Commission before final approval on Nov. 11. To run, candidates must have at least 100,000 signatures from all 34 of Afghanistan’s provinces.
Billions of dollars in funds pledged to Afghanistan are tied to the government’s holding transparent and credible elections, a challenge in a country rife with patronage and corruption and a resilient Taliban insurgency. The Taliban have asked people not to vote and do not recognize the election process.
Top contenders include former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, who was the runner up to President Hamid Karzai in the 2009 elections and dropped out just ahead of a runoff vote following allegations of massive fraud in the first round.
Ashraf Ghani, a Pashtun former finance minister who oversaw the transition of security from foreign forces to the Afghan army and police. He weighed in with support from two of Afghanistan’s ethnic groups. His choices for vice president are Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, a former warlord who is thought to control the majority of the Uzbek vote and Sarwar Danish, a former justice minister who has the support of former Hazara warlord and vice president Mohammad Karim Khalili. Ghani ran and lost in the 2009 elections.
Two former Afghan warlords are sharing a ticket, one for president, the other for vice president. They are Abdul Rab Rasoul Sayyaf, an influential Pashtun lawmaker and religious scholar, who is running for president along with former energy and water minister Ismail Khan, a Tajik.
Rassoul, a Pashtun, is running with Ahmad Zia Massoud, the brother of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Northern Alliance commander killed in an al-Qaida suicide bombing two days before Sept. 11, 2001. Habiba Sarabi, a Hazara who was governor of Bamyan province and is one of five women vice presidential candidates, fills out the ticket.
Karzai’s brother is also running with Wahidullah Shahrani, an Uzbek who was minister of mines, and Abrahim Qasimi, who was a Hazara member of parliament.
