Warlords Among 17 Going Up Against Karzai in Afghan Vote

Election officials announced Tuesday that 17 candidates, including several well-known warlords, will challenge incumbent President Hamid Karzai in the Oct. 9 elections.

The U.N.-Afghan Joint Electoral Management Body noted that three of the hopefuls drew a large proportion of the objections submitted by citizens and organizations, but it did not reject them as candidates.

They were Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Uzbek general; Karzai’s running mate, Karim Khalili; and Haji Mohammed Mukhaqiq of the minority Shiite Muslim Hazaras of central Afghanistan.

“We received 115 complaints that include legal and personal protests, plundering, murder, rape and crimes against humanity, crimes against national unity and also for running militias,” said Zakim Shah, head of the election commission.

Mukhaqiq was furious when Shah cited complaints against him. Insisting that he had seen the documents Shah cited, Mukhaqiq said there was just one complaint against him but that “Karzai had 50.”

“Why didn’t you mention Karzai’s name? It is not fair,” he told Shah before driving away.

Afghan militias have resisted efforts to disarm them, raising concern among United Nations officials that intimidation, as well as attacks by Taliban militants, could mar the elections.

Dostum, who was not at Tuesday’s event, became one of Afghanistan’s most feared men during the civil war of the early 1990s.

He fought with and against the Soviets in the 1980s and with the Taliban until he joined the Northern Alliance, which helped the U.S. oust the Taliban in late 2001.

Karzai is seen by some Afghans as weak and dependent on U.S. support. But he remains the favorite to win Afghanistan’s first democratic elections.

He was chosen to be president at a traditional loya jirga assembly two years ago.

The lone female candidate, Massouda Jalal, a physician who ran a distant second to Karzai at the loya jirga, was approved. Five candidates who were deemed unqualified were cut.

Remnants of the vanquished Taliban and their hard-line Islamist allies are fighting a guerrilla war against American-led forces and the recently established Afghan army, mainly in the south.

They have vowed to disrupt the elections, which they call a sham.