Afghanistan will hold a presidential election on Saturday April 5th. The new president will succeed Hamid Karzai, who has been in power since the 2001 fall of the Taliban. Karzai is constitutionally barred from seeking a third consecutive term. To win, a candidate must secure more than 50 percent of valid ballots, failing which the top two candidates go into a run-off. The final result from the first round may not be known until at least mid May. If there is a second round, it is scheduled to be held at the end of that month. Eight candidates are running for the president of whom three are frontrunners. They include former foreign ministers Abdullah Abdullah and Zalmay Rassoul as well as former finance minister Ashraf Ghani. Leading candidates have been warning that fraud will play a big role in the vote. Security has been beefed up across the country with nearly 200,000 troops deployed to prevent the Taliban attacks. The militants have threatened to disrupt the poll.
Posted on: Fri, 04 Apr 2014 15:09:27 +0000