[Tolo News] At a campaign event in Baghlan province, Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai's First Vice-President Abdul Rashid Dostum...ethnic Uzbek warlord who distinguished himself fighting the Soviets and the Taliban. The story that he had a bad guy run over with a tank is an exaggeration. It was an armored personnel carrier...
cautioned the Uzbek and Turkmen tribes of the province that they would be branded "traitors" if they do not vote for hist team in the June 14 runoff.
"What happened to our votes? They were stolen. You will not make a mistake my tribes," Dostum, an Uzbek himself, told the crowd. "If you do not cast your votes in favor of Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, you are traitors."
Dostum's have sparked outrage among some election observers who have been adamant about keeping Afghanistan historically fractious ethnic politics out of this year's presidential election.
"There should be efforts to convey their planes to people, there should not be any discussion of ethnicity in the election," Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA) front man Faeem Naeemi said.
Meanwhile,
...back at the shouting match, Bart was wondering if fisticuffs would be appropriate at this point...
Ashraf Ghani has defended his running mate, and said his comments have been misunderstood. "Surely, there is some misunderstanding, no one can threaten an Afghan into voting for a particular candidate," Ghani said on Saturday. "We believe in freedom for each Afghan, so they will vote based on their conscience."
The choice to have Dostum as a running mate initially caused a lot of backlash from the international community toward Ghani's candidacy. Foreign officials and human rights
When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much...
activists have accused him of war crimes and human rights violations during the civil war period of the 1990s.