Follow-up on presidential election in Afghanistan.

AuthorGarner, Godfrey

Afghans will go to the polls a final time in the 2014 election on June 14th. They will decide between Abdullah Abdullah National Coalition of Afghanistan and Independent Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai. The frontrunner as indicated by polling is Abdullah Abdullah. Twenty-seven candidates were confirmed to run for office initially however, Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission disqualified sixteen of the candidates. Three candidates decided to drop out of the race and throw their support to one of the remaining eight candidates by April 2014. The initial vote indicated Abdullah Abdullah followed by Ghani, receiving the largest number of votes. The June 14th election will determine Afghanistan's new president. The election will herald Afghanistan's first democratic transfer of power. Many American's are weary of all things 'Afghan', concerned only about our upcoming withdrawal from that country. This is unfortunate because Afghanistan has always and will always be strategically important. Its geographical location, bordering Pakistan and Iran, nations that are now or may soon be, nuclear capable and its proximity to China, as well as Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan former members of the Soviet Union all anxious to be players in the international scene is reason enough. The fact that America plans to leave a residual force of 10,000 in that country for an extended period however, is however the paramount reason Americans should be concerned and knowledgeable about the direction Afghanistan will take under new leadership.

The May 2014 edition of American Diplomacy carried an article, Afghan Elections Part I. by Andrew Hicks and Francisco Diaz ranking the candidates for Afghan President based on criteria developed with a central theme of Afghan/American relations in the future. Among the top three candidates selected by the authors was Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai in part because of his alignment with America in the conversion of...

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