on Saturday, 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...
delivered a broad-sweeping speech that touched on foreign interfernce in the upcoming elections, relations with Pakistain and the Taliban as well as security pact negotiations with the United States.
With only weeks before the presidential vote on April 5, Karzai's time in office is near over and Saturday's speech could mark one of his final public addresses focused on policy issues.
"I warn you: don't try to interfere in our elections - it's in your interests," Karzai said as if speaking directly to the foreign powers he had in mind.
In attendance at the gathering were government officials, MPs, presidential candidates and Adib Fahim, the son of recently deceased First Vice President Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim.
The Afghanistan's Caped President assured the crowd that there would be free and fair elections and said that the security forces were entirely ready to ensure the safety and integrity of the process.
"The government will use all its power to ensure the coming presidential and provincial council elections are free, fair and transparent," Karzai said. "The Afghan national security forces will provide a secure environment for Afghans to take part in the process."
He assured that the "electoral bodies are independent and free of government influence."
Some have accused Karzai of meddling in the election process and favoring certain candidates, especially after his brother Qayoum Karzai folded his presidential campaign in favor of competitor 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.....
two weeks ago.