Afghan president prospect of early elections

Hamid Karzai says he is thinking about holding presidential elections a year early, in 2013.

Afghanistan's president raised the prospect Thursday of holding presidential elections a year early to avoid a potentially deadly concurrence of a transition of power and a major drawdown of international forces in 2014.

The suggestion could mean that President Hamid Karzai is looking for a graceful exit ahead of what many Afghans predict is looming civil war, but it also could provide some hope for a peaceful democratic transition to a nation worried about falling apart as NATO troops leave.

Karzai — who has led Afghanistan for more than a decade — is constitutionally barred from running for a third term in the election currently  for March 2014.

In a news conference in Kabul, Hamid Karzai revealed he would either bring the transition forward or bring the .

 Afghan President Hamid Karzai, right, speaks during a joint press conference with the NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, April 12, 2012. President Hamid Karzai said he is considering calling presidential elections a year early to lessen the strain on Afghanistan that could be caused by the departure of foreign combat troops at the same time as a national ballot.

Realistically, bringing forward the NATO withdrawal is not a decision Karzai can make.

Holding elections next year, however, would allow the government to make use of the and logistics that would be still available from NATO force

"I have been talking about this for a few months now," Karzai said in response to a question at a joint news conference with visiting NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Karzai said he had discussed the possibility of holding elections in 2013 with his inner circle of advisers in a bid to reduce security risks and lessen the strain that could be caused by foreign combat troops leaving Afghanistan at the same time as the elections. But he stressed no final decision has been made and it was not likely to happen quickly.

Karzai's rule has been tarnished by a lack of clout outside the capital and allegations of fraud surrounding his re-election in the last vote, but he also has managed to hold together rival ethnic groups and political factions through a combination of patronage and compromise deals — and a lot of help from international allies.

A suicide bomb struck a Kabul shrine, Karzai cancels UK trip.

A suicide bomb struck a Kabul shrine, killing at least 54, while the other blast struck near a Shia mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif at about the same time.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has cancelled a visit to the UK to return to Afghanistan, after Tuesday`s deadly attacks in the capital, Kabul, and in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
The twin attacks apparently targeting Shia Muslims killed at least 58 people. 

 

Afghan police officers stand guard

A suicide bomber detonated a device at a Shiite shrine in Kabul, as worshippers were marking the Shiite holy day of Ashura, Afghan Health Ministry spokesman Kargar Norughli said. Fifty-six people were killed and 193 were wounded, Norughli added.
Four people were killed in an explosion at a roundabout on a busy street in Mazar-e Sharif, the provincial capital of Afghanistan's northern Balkh province, police official Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai said. Another 21 were wounded in that attack.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has canceled a visit to the UK to return home following Tuesday's deadly blasts in the capital, Kabul, and in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif.
Other source in London said Karzai had been due in London late Tuesday from Germany but was flying back to Afghanistan after the twin suicide attacks killed 60 people and wounded scores of others in the two cities.

"The first time that on such an important religious day in Afghanistan terrorism of that horrible nature is taking place".
Gen. John Allen, commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said the attack on the Ashura pilgrims "on one of the holiest of days in the Islamic calendar is an attack against Islam itself, and we denounce and condemn these atrocities in the strongest of terms.
Allen said."Our prayers and deepest sympathies are with the families and loved ones of those innocent civilians killed or injured in today's horrific attacks,"
A NATO's senior civilian representative in Afghanistan called the attacks "horrifying."
"That men, women and children are killed and injured on Ashura is particularly tragic," he said.
The bomb which exploded near the main mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif was apparently strapped to a bicycle, and went off shortly after the Kabul blast.
Four people were killed and 17 injured in that attack.