[An Nahar] Afghanistan's Caped President Hamid Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai
... 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
Pashtunface 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...
pledged Thursday that he would step down as required by the constitution at the end of his second term in 2014 and that nothing would prevent presidential elections being held.
The election coincides with the scheduled withdrawal of NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions...
forces from Afghanistan and questions have been raised about whether the security situation could make it impossible for the vote to go ahead.
But the Western-backed Karzai, who has been the only elected head of state in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion brought down the Taliban, said no security reasons would prevent the elections.
"Even if my term is prolonged by one day it will be illegitimate," he told a news conference.
"The election will definitely happen, 100 percent will happen, on due time. You can choose your favorite candidate. Whoever you like, vote for him."
Karzai's re-election in 2009 was accompanied by widespread fraud. The international community sees the next vote as one of the last major hurdles before NATO combat troops withdraw at the end of 2014.
The president suggested in April that he was considering calling an early election to leave enough time for the new government to handle a planned security transition from U.S. forces to Afghans, but has apparently dropped the idea.