18 Candidates Compete in Afghanistan's First Presidential Election

Afghanistan's inaugural presidential election, set for 9 October 2004, drew 18 candidates from across the country's ethnic and political spectrum.

Incumbent Hamid Karzai, a 46-year-old US-backed Pashtun from southern Afghanistan, entered the race as the clear frontrunner. His principal challenger was Yunus Qanooni, 47, a Tajik and former education minister whose support among Northern Alliance commanders gave him a strong base in the Panjshir valley north of Kabul.

Two warlords also sought the presidency. Abdul Rashid Dostam, 50, an Uzbek who fought first for the Soviets and then with the mujahedin, commands a militia near Mazar-i-Sharif. Mohammed Mohaqeq, 49, a Hazara who battled the Soviets in the 1980s, holds wide support in northern and central Afghanistan and had served briefly as vice president in Karzai's interim government.

Masooda Jalal, a 41-year-old Tajik physician, stood as the only woman in the field. She had placed second to Karzai at the 2002 constitutional loya jirga after being urged by her patients to seek office. Other contenders included Abdul Latif Pedram, a 41-year-old Tajik poet who studied in France and founded a publication criticizing corruption in the early 1990s, and Abdul Satar Sirat, 67, an Islamic literature professor who had outpolled Karzai at the 2001 Bonn conference before throwing his support behind him.

Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this AFP wire report, first published in September 2004, in its own words.