[RFE: Afghanistan] One of the top candidates expected to bid to unseat Afghan President Hamid Karzai withdrew abruptly from the election race on May 2, dealing a blow to opposition hopes of fielding a contender with a broad enough base to win.The Taliban got their start by hanging some of Gul Agha's myrmidons for raping young girls.
Karzai, who travels next week to meet U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington, confirmed on April 27 that he will stand for another term in an election on August 20.
"Oh, yasss! Who could run the country better than I?"
Candidates have one more week to register, and opponents of the president have met privately to try to field a unified slate. Gul Agha Sherzai, popular governor of Nangarhar Province in the country's east and a former anti-Soviet guerrilla commander, had been in talks to head up a broad opposition ticket with two vice presidential candidates that would span ethnic lines.
I dunno. Maybe the brute is popular. Afghanistan's a funny country, just not "funny ha ha." Either that, or he told the guy who wrote this that he was popular.
But he told a news conference in the provincial capital Jalalabad that he had met Karzai and been persuaded not to run. "I visited the
"As a gesture of friendship and esteem, Hamid gave me gifts of gold and silver and the lips of three of my enemies."
"I will neither lead this alliance nor announce my candidacy for the presidential election."
"I don't want him to give my lips to somebody else."
Sherzai also said he would resign as governor. But Karzai rejected his resignation...
"Really. I'll step down. You don't have to have me killed."
"No, no! I have your heart in this jar, so the rest of you can continue as you've been doing."
... and heaped him with praise.
And gold and jewels. And lips.
"Hamid Karzai sees Gul Agha Sherzai as a very fine and hardworking governor and a good advisor, and rejects his resignation," the presidential palace said in a statement.
How things change. After Mullah Omar was tossed, Hamid appointed somebody else -- I've forgotten who, but I could look it up here -- as governor of Kandahar. Gul Agha showed up and ran the guy out of town, resuming his old position. Hamid couldn't do a thing about it.
"The president of Afghanistan appreciated Gul Agah Sherzai's announcement he will not run in the presidential election, and called it a positive step toward improving the government and unity of the people of Afghanistan."
"Unity" implies no differences of opinion. Afghanistan is a country where differences of opinion are part of the culture. It's also a country that's used to being ruled, rather than governed.
Defections appear to have left the opposition in disarray as the election draws closer.
Hamid is actually smarter than people give him credit for being. He's also more corrupt, and people give him a lot of credit for being corrupt.
Sherzai is a prominent member of Karzai's own Pashtun ethnic group, Afghanistan's largest.