 [An Nahar] Former defense minister Abdul Rahim Wardak withdrew from the Afghan presidential election on Sunday in the latest sign of deal-making in the race to lead the country as NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis....
troops prepare to exit.
Wardak, a veteran military and political operator, has been a senior adviser to President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai
... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use...
, but he failed to make any impact in the election campaign ahead of voting on April 5.
Nine candidates now remain in the race to succeed Karzai, who has ruled Afghanistan since 2001 and is constitutionally banned from running again.
The three leading names are former foreign minister Zalmai Rassoul
... former foreign minister and a very close confidant of Hamid Karzai. Before serving as foreign minister Rassoul also spent seven years laboring as a national security adviser to the president. An ethnic Pashtun born in Kabul, Rassoul was the valedictorian of his class at the illustrious Franco-American school in Kabul, Lycee Istiqal. He has an MD from the Paris Medical School in France.....
, Abdullah Abdullah
... the former foreign minister of the Northern Alliance government, advisor to Masood, and candidate for president against Karzai. Dr. Abdullah was born in Kabul and is half Tadjik and half Pashtun...
, who came second in 2009, and former World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani.
On Sunday Wardak declined to publicly endorse another candidate, though analysts say he could back Rassoul, who is increasingly seen as having the implicit support of the outgoing president.
"Our campaign was not vigorous from the very beginning," Wardak, 68, told a presser in Kabul.
"Today I announce that, without joining any other teams, I withdraw from the presidential election candidacy.
"Reaching power has never been my target (and) I will always remain at my nation's service."
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