by Rachel Morarjee
KABUL, Sept 7 (AFP) - Campaigning for next month's presidential election in Afghanistan began Tuesday, opening a race in which a war-weary and ethnically-divided people will choose their leader for the first time.
Eighteen candidates including US-backed incumbent Hamid Karzai are running in the October 9 vote, which will fall three years after the United States unleashed a military assault to destroy the Taliban regime for harbouring Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks.
Karzai and three other candidates made campaign announcements but there were no policy pronouncements from the 14 others.
"I am confident that he is going to win," Karzai's campaign spokesman Hamid Elmi told a press conference as Karzai made a public appearance at a factory opening on the other side of Kabul.
Karzai's campaign team will make trips to the provinces in the next month and he will make a speech about his policies in the coming three to four days, Elmi said.
Poet Abdul Latif Pedram, monarchist Homayoon Shah Asifi and former police colonel Abdul Hasib Aryan also held press conferences to launch their campaigns. But there were none of the party conventions, balloons, banners or speeches which characterise Western election campaigns.
"Few people have said what policies they will campaign on but there have been a lot of back-door meetings between candidates trying to cut deals," said a diplomat.
The vote count will take two to three weeks. If front-runner Karzai fails to win a clear majority, the election could drag on through the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and into November.
Fundamentalist fighters loyal to the Taliban have vowed to disrupt the polls and have been waging a bombing and guerrilla campaign, killing hundreds of people including 12 election workers since the beginning of the year.
Despite the bloodshed, about 10.5 million people have registered to vote in the central Asian state's first-ever presidential election -- more than the 9.8 eligible voters earlier forecast by the United Nations.
While the figures reflect the enthusiasm of many Afghans about their chance to choose their leader, the numbers also point to widespread fraud and multiple registration.
Voters have been subject to harassment and abuse, according to a report by the United Nations and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.
Some had their voter registration cards forcibly confiscated "by commanders, state authorities and private individuals" while others were abused for not obtaining their cards, the report found.
It warned that the elections would be affected by insecurity, lack of information and the control of regional warlords and militias.
Karzai has tried and largely failed to extend his control outside the capital and into medieval-era provinces which remain under the sway of regional warlords.
Rural communities are likely to vote according to the wishes of their tribal elders, or at the behest of military commanders with an intimidating record of violence.
Spiralling violence, especially in south and southeast Afghanistan which are in the grip of a Taliban-led insurgency, will also hamper the election, analysts said.
The European Union and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have scaled back their election monitoring teams because of rife insecurity.
"If it is too dangerous for monitors to monitor, isn't it too dangerous for Afghans to vote?" asked Andrew Wilder, head of the Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit, voicing the views of many in the aid community that the polls are taking place prematurely.
NATO-led peacekeeping troops will boost their numbers by almost a third to 8,500 in time for the polls, to secure Kabul and parts of the quieter northern provinces.
In the south, 18,500 US-led troops will provide some security for the ballot. But the bulk of the work will be done by officers from Afghanistan's fledgling police force.
In many cases security will be provided by men drawn from the forces of local warlords who have intimidated voters, warned Vikram Parekh, analyst with the International Crisis Group.
"Security will be relying on a partly trained Afghan police force, many of whom are still loyal to local commanders and tied to local power structures," he said.