President Karzai will run for re-election

KABUL (AFP) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai ended months of uncertainty Monday by announcing that he intended to run for re-election on August 20 in the war-torn countrys second presidential vote.
Karzai, who was elected head of state in 2004, had repeatedly dodged questions on whether he was willing to stand for office amid plummeting approval ratings over rising Taliban violence and government corruption. In a few days I too, will go to register (as a candidate), with my vice-presidents, Karzai told a news conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in Kabul.
He hailed the vote as another step towards democracy in Afghanistan.
Karzai first took office in 2002, just months after the United States and its Western allies toppled the Taliban regime in a late 2001 invasion, before winning Afghanistans first presidential election in 2004.
Under the constitution, the latest elections were supposed to take place this month with Karzai stepping down from office by late May.
But the vote was put back to August over security fears and logistics problems, and the Supreme Court extended his term until August 20.
Once the darling of the West and the beacon of hope for Afghans who dreamed of prosperity after decades of suffering, Karzais popularity has declined both at home and in the corridors of power of his chief allies. Mounting insurgency, widespread corruption and rising civilian casualties during foreign troop operations have shrunk the probability that he can match the clear majority he won in mid-2004.
Karzai urged war-weary Afghans to take part in the ballot.
That (election) is one sure way of taking Afghanistan towards greater stability, he said.
The visiting British prime minister warned of challenges ahead.
The election year will be a stern test for everyone, but we face a choice: confront extremism here and in Pakistan or let it come to us, Brown told the news conference. Brown said it was a vital year and pledged strong support for fledgling democracy in Afghanistan, torn apart by decades of war.
Addressing a new family law for Afghanistans Shia community that prompted outcry in the West for allegedly imposing Taliban-style restrictions on women, Brown said he was assured the legislation was certainly being reviewed.
Critics suggested that Karzai passed the law last month in a bid to curry favour with Shias in the run-up to the election, and charged it violated womens rights-for example by allegedly allowing marital rape.
I can tell you with confidence that the law is under review, amendments will take place, the Afghan president reiterated.
He added that the law would be run in a manner that would not raise any concerns for human rights.
Before winning the 2004 election, Karzai led an interim and transitional administration agreed upon at a gathering of Afghan and international leaders in Germany soon after the fall of the Taliban.
The Afghan election authorities said more than 40 people intending to challenge Karzai have taken registration papers from the commission.
Among them are two of his former finance ministers, Anwar-Ul Haq Ahadi and Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, and his ex-interior minister Ali Ahmad Jalali, whom experts have labelled potential serious contenders for the top job.
Ahadi, a former World Bank official, has called Karzai too weak to handle Afghanistans complex politics, exacerbated by the bloody insurgency.
The fundamentalist Taliban were in power between 1996 and 2001, and are now waging a deadly insurgency aimed at toppling Karzais US-backed government and ousting around 70,000 foreign troops.