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| Afghanistan |
| Abdullah-Ghani run-off to decide next Afghan president |
| 2014-04-27 |
| [DAWN] Afghanistan's presidential election is set for a second-round vote, preliminary results showed Saturday, as former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah ... the former foreign minister of the Northern Alliance government, advisor to Masood, and candidate for president against Karzai. Dr. Abdullah was born in Kabul and is half Tadjik and half Pashtun... and ex-World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani both failed to secure a decisive victory. We guessed that. The vote will choose a successor to outgoing President Hamid Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtunface on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... in Afghanistan's first democratic transfer of power. The eventual winner will have to oversee the fight against a resilient Taliban insurgency as 51,000 US-led troops depart this year, as well as strengthen an economy that relies on declining aid money. "Based on our results, it appears that the election goes to the second round," Ahmad Yusuf Nuristani, head of the Independent Election Commission, told a presser in Kabul. Abdullah secured 44.9 per cent of the April 5 vote, with his main rival Ghani on 31.5 per cent, according to the preliminary results. |
| Posted by:Fred |