Afghan Presidential Election, 2009 - Candidates

Candidates

See also: List of candidates in the Afghan presidential election, 2009

Forty-four candidates had registered for the presidential election when the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan (IEC) announced its official preliminary list of registered candidates on May 17, 2009. Three candidates withdrew from the race before the election took place, having thrown their support behind one of the top two contenders. Each presidential candidate ran with two vice-presidential candidates.

Karzai filed his candidacy on May 4, 2009; he retained incumbent second Vice President Karim Khalili, who is from the Hazara ethnic group but exchanged the first Vice President Ahmad Zia Massood for Mohammad Qasim Fahim, a Tajik former warlord blamed by human rights groups for mass civilian deaths during the Afghan Civil War.

The United National Front announced on April 16, 2009 that they would nominate former foreign minister Dr. Abdullah Abdullah as their presidential candidate. Abdullah was foreign minister of the Northern Alliance from 1998 onwards, and was a dominant figure in the Alliance. He was appointed foreign minister in the interim government that was installed after the U.S. invasion.

The first person to have declared his intention to run, Dr. Ramazan Bashardost formally registered for the presidential election on May 7, 2009, with vice-presidential candidates Mr. Mohammad Mosa Barekzai, a professor at the Kabul Agricultural Institute and Ms. Afifa Maroof, a member of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, and with a dove, a symbol of peace and liberty, as their campaign symbol. Bashardost has openly criticized the government and accused ministers of corruption. While serving as the planning minister, he was critical of foreign organizations in Afghanistan eating up aid money meant for the Afghan people and later resigned under government and foreign pressure.

Dr. Ashraf Ghani, a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institute in Washington D.C., and former finance minister, UN special advisor, and World Bank analyst, registered as a presidential candidate on May 7, 2009. At a time when many Afghans would prefer to lessen the appearance of ties to the U.S government, he had the distinction of hiring Clinton-campaign chief strategist James Carville as his campaign advisor. His close ties to Washington places him among those that Afghans consider to be "Zana-e-Bush", literally "Bush's wives". Ashraf Ghani has also been reported as the candidate most favoured by the U.S. for appointment to a "chief executive officer" position that the U.S. intends to insert regardless of the winner of the election.

Mirwais Yasini, the First Deputy Speaker of the Afghan House of the People joined the race in March 2009. He was previously a member of the Emergency Loya Jirga convened in 2002, served as deputy of the Loya Jirga, and director of counter narcotics and deputy minister of counter narcotics.

Shahla Atta, a liberal female MP and war widow also stood, pledging to revive the modernizing policies of 1973–1978 president Mohammad Daoud Khan.

Other presidential contenders included the leader of the Justice and Development Party of Afghanistan Zabihullah Ghazi Nuristani; former attorney general Abdul Jabbar Sabit; former defence minister Shah Nawaz Tanai; Uzbek leader Akbar Bai; economy expert and current senior minister Hedayat Arsala; economist Mohammad Hashem Taufiqui; Sarwar Ahmedzai, a former member of the 2002 Afghan Loya Jirga who authored a 2009 country report for U.S. officials formulating a new U.S. strategy for Afghanistan; and others.

Along with the presidential candidates, were 3197 candidates for 420 provincial council positions. A Provincial Council in each of Afghanistan's 34 provinces advises and works with the provincial administration, headed by a Governor that is appointed by the President.