KABUL, Aug 18 (AFP) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai's 17 rivals in the presidential race Wednesday threatened to boycott landmark October 9 polls unless he stepped down before the elections.
"Karzai misuses government facilities for his electoral campaign -- all (17) presidential candidates have unanimously agreed to ask for his resignation," Abdul Satar Sirat, one of the candidates, claimed at a press conference in a Kabul restaurant.
The candidates want Karzai to resign "within one week," Sirat said.
"All 17 presidential candidates would boycott the polls," he replied when asked what they would do if Karzai rejected their call to resign.
The call was the first joint statement by Karzai's 17 rivals since they were confirmed as candidates last week by the electoral commission.
Sirat, a professor from the ethnic Tajik minority, had run against Karzai at the Bonn conference in December 2001 when delegates chose a leader of the first interim government after the US-led ouster of the Taliban regime.
He won 11 votes to Karzai's three, but later swung his support behind Karzai.
The 17 candidates including Karzai's chief rival Yunus Qanooni, part of the powerful bloc of Tajik anti-Taliban commanders from the Panjshir valley, met to discuss pre-election strategies while Karzai addressed an independence day gathering at Kabul's National Stadium.