Who’s Running for President of Afghanistan? No One Yet
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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(KABUL, Afghanistan) — With Afghan President Hamid Karzai due to step down next year, the independent election commission of Afghanistan began the process Monday of signing up candidates to run in the April 5 election.
But unlike the U.S., where a dozen different names have been mentioned for a race still years away, there’s a great reluctance by Afghan politicians to jump into the ring.
By the end of the day, no one had registered with the deadline literally three weeks away.
It’s expected that serious candidates will emerge the closer it gets to Oct. 6 and indeed, one election commissioner said that there have been 20 inquiries about registration packets.
All it takes to sign up is the equivalent of $18,000 and signatures of 100,000 potential supporters.
The last two elections, which Karzai won, were fraught with allegations of vote tampering.
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