KABUL, 19 August 2004 — Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s 17 rivals in the presidential race yesterday threatened to boycott landmark Oct. 9 elections unless he stepped down before the vote. “Karzai misuses government facilities for his electoral campaign — all (17) presidential candidates have unanimously agreed to ask for his resignation,” Abdul Sattar 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 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 the president.

Sixteen candidates including his chief rival Yunus Qanuni, part of the powerful bloc of Tajik anti-Taleban commanders from the Panjsher Valley, met to discuss pre-election strategies while the US-backed transitional leader Karzai addressed an independence day gathering at the National Stadium.

The only candidate absent from the session was northern Uzbek warlord Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, who was represented by his vice presidential running mate Safiqa Habibi. Under Afghanistan’s electoral law all government officials are required to step down from their positions 75 days before polls, with the exception of the president.

Yesterday’s meeting follows days of closed-door negotiations among candidates to establish how alliances might be made and whether some would step down in favor of others. Discussions over whether Karzai’s rivals could pick a single candidate were ongoing, Sirat said.

“We have not approached that point. However, it is one of the topics that we are still discussing, if we identify it as good to our national interest we will go with that,” he said. Sirat accused Karzai of misusing his power to influence the United Nations-backed electoral commission and said its members should resign.

“In the electoral commission there are his (Karzai) selected people, but our party, the National Congress, has no representative in the commission,” said another presidential candidate Abdul Latif Pedram.

Karzai promised Afghans greater security when they go to vote during his independence day speech. “In order to provide security for the constituencies and voters, the government, the international community’s forces and the United Nations will strongly endeavor to prevent the small groups which come to our country from across the border,” Karzai said at an Independence Day parade as military helicopters hovered overhead.

Afghanistan gained independence from Britain in 1919, but the last 23 years have been a catalogue of war and foreign occupation culminating in the US-led invasion in late 2001 to oust the Taleban militia protecting Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda.

Public executions, amputations and floggings during the Taleban’s harsh rule were carried out in the same stadium where the parade took place.

About 18,000 US-led troops are in Afghanistan, mostly hunting militants in the south and east of the country, particularly near the border with Pakistan.

In addition there are some 8,000 peacekeepers from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) stationed largely in Kabul and the less troublesome north.

Afghanistan is also plagued by turf wars between rival militias. On Tuesday, a renegade commander, under US pressure, agreed to a cease-fire after driving back the forces of the local government in the western province of Herat.

Karzai, the favorite among 18 candidates, stood alongside Defence Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim, who threw his support behind a rival after Karzai snubbed him as a running mate.

Fahim, who has dragged his feet implementing disarmament policies among the Mujahedeen he once led, delivered a veiled reference to US influence in Afghanistan.

“Our people won the freedom with their blood. But securing real independence in the complex politics and imbalanced power existing in today’s international affairs, is harder than winning independence and military victories,” Fahim said.

Karzai also called on neighboring countries to prevent militants crossing into Afghanistan through poorly monitored borders and cooperate in the “fight against terror.” “Today I kindly request Afghanistan’s neighboring countries’ cooperation in the fight against terror,” Karzai said.

“I ask them not to allow terrorists to enter our country from their territory because their countries’ security depends upon the security of Afghanistan.”

Speaking to thousands of people gathered in Kabul’s National Stadium, Karzai hailed progress towards Afghanistan’s first presidential elections, saying more than 10 million people had registered to vote.