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Landmark Afghan presidential and parliamentary elections will be held as scheduled, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Wednesday, adding that he is confident he will win the presidential race.
The UN-Afghan Joint Electoral Management Body announced on July 9 that Afghanistanis will go to the polls to elect a president on October 9, but parliamentary elections - supposed to held then - will be delayed until April.
Karzai's US-backed government had hoped to hold both elections in June, then September, but logistics problems and security issues forced the delays.
"Three days ago there were 6.7 million people registered for the election, and today over 7 million," Karzai told a visiting Chinese press delegation in his dilapidated but tightly-guarded presidential palace in Kabul.
"This has been achieved in a period of two and a half months, which is a tremendous success for the Afghan people. So the Afghan people are actually ahead of the process," the president said.
"And you will be surprised that more than 40 percent of the people registered are women, even in provinces strongly influenced by the Taliban," he said.
Under the ultra-Islamist Taliban regime, women were barred from public activities.
"The most important element for any election in the world, and in particular in Afghanistan, is the willingness of the people and their participation," Karzai told China Daily. "Very fortunately, we have that."
"Seven million people registered shows the tremendous desire of the Afghan people to participate in choosing their president and their parliament," he said.
The other element needed for a successful election is the technical preparations and proper security arrangements, Karzai said.
US-led forces are still hunting down remnants of Taliban troops and al-Qaida members across Afghanistan, who have vowed to sabotage the election process.
"We are now in a good stage of preparations, but we must enhance things and make them better."
When asked by China Daily whether he has the confidence to win the presidential race, Karzai replied: "Yes."
"My campaign will be one that will have reforms for the future of the country. I'll try to do better in every aspect - to present a clean government, a clean picture of my own and the work I've done so far."
Karzai, whose father was a former Afghan Senate president, is enjoying a more than 70 per cent approval rate, and there seems to be no competent rival.
"I'll go to the Afghan people and say: 'My name is Hamid Karzai. If you don't know me, here I am and I would introduce myself to you. This is what I've done in the past two and a half years for you and for all of us in our country. And this is what I'm planning to do for the future," he said.
He noted he would tell the voters not just about his successes, but his failures, too. "I will tell them in which areas I failed," he said.
The 47-year-old Pushtu likes walking as well as riding horses as exercise.
"I like to walk in the mountains... I don't like rooms. I like the outside... I like the countryside more than I like cities," he said.
"I'm a quiet family man. I leave home at about 8 o'clock in the morning for the office. I go back home in the evening. I don't go anywhere else," the quick-minded leader joked.
"So that's a good family man."
(China Daily July 16, 2004)
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