Afghan election: The contenders

Chief among his challengers are former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani and former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah.

PRESIDENT HAMID KARZAI

Tribe: Popalzai clan – Pashtun

Karzai was handed the enormous task of leading his crippled nation in December 2001 when the dust had barely settled on a US-led invasion that drove out the extremist Taliban regime for sheltering Al-Qaeda after 9/11.

In 2004, he went on to win Afghanistan's first presidential election with 55.4 percent of the vote. His nearest rival managed just over 16 percent.

Although it is difficult to gauge the level of support, one recent survey suggested 44 percent of Afghans would vote for the incumbent president Karzai -- a strong lead but far behind the 50 percent needed to avoid a run-off.
  
Karzai's backroom tactics and reluctance to hit the public campaign trail as hard as his rivals have led to controversy, with voters disillusioned by his failure to rein in corruption and a Taliban insurgency now at its deadliest.

His choice for vice president of Mohammad Qasim Fahim, a former warlord accused of war crimes, dismayed the international community although it may win the Pashtun leader some votes from the influential Tajik minority.

Leaders of the Uzbek and Hazara minorities have also backed the incumbent, while opponents have struggled to put together a coalition strong enough to dislodge him.

Karzai's official campaign website

The US paradox: Viewed as a US puppet. But Washington has openly and publicly turned against him in recent months. Strengths: As an incumbent, commands the resources of the Afghan state, including the army and the police, along with the billions of international aid dollars that flow into the treasury. Has succeeded in transitioning a war-ravaged country functioning on medieval codes of conduct into a more or less democratic one, France 24 reports.

ABDULLAH ABDULLAH

Tribe: Tajik-Pashtun

Abdullah Abdullah, a trained ophthalmologist born in 1960, first gained fame during Afghanistan's decades of war as a spokesman and aide for famous anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, assassinated in 2001.
  
As foreign minister he was known as a snappy dresser and an eloquent diplomat. Fluent in Dari, Pashtu and English, he also speaks Arabic and French.
  
After being removed from government, he joined the Massoud Foundation set up to promote development according to the vision of the Soviet and Taliban resistance hero.
  
Today Abdullah speaks of a "disconnect" between Karzai's government and a public alienated by corruption and a Taliban-led insurgency. This has enabled anti-government forces, such as the Taliban, to gain some support, he believes.
  
Abdullah says the country has been allowed to fall into dire straits despite the many opportunities that arose after the fall of the Taliban when the country was flooded with international aid.

Abdullah proposes amending the constitution to do away with Afghanistan's highly centralised system and introducing a prime minister and elected provincial officials that would make Afghans more involved in their government.

Abdullah's mother is an ethnic Tajik and he is associated with the Tajiks of Massoud's stronghold in the Panjshir Valley, north of Kabul, where he has a river-front home.
  
His father was a Pashtun and Abdullah believes this could bring him some votes from that all-important group based in the south.

Abdullah Abdullah's official campaign site

The odds: A recent poll predicted that Abdullah was the only candidate capable of robbing Karzai of the more than 50 percent he needs for an outright victory, although he may only be able to muster around a quarter of the ballot.
  
But a good showing at the polls could open a new future for a man who all but faded from the scene after Karzai unceremoniously fired him as foreign minister, a job he had held since the Taliban regime was toppled in 2001.

ASHRAF GHANI 

Tribe: Ahmadzai clan – Pashtun

Ashraf Ghani, who led a spirited campaign to unseat President Hamid Karzai, is a former World Bank academic who carved out a respected international career during years in exile.

Despite his determined effort, polls predict the wiry intellectual will trail a disappointing third or fourth place in a race that has been more about deal-making with influential factions than manifesto issues.

"Karzai will give you food now, but I will provide food for a 100 years because I will provide jobs for one million people and build one million houses," he pledged as campaigning came to a close Monday.

The former finance minister's campaign, billed "A New Beginning," offers solid plans for development and models for reconstruction in what he considers a moral obligation to offer his country an alternative to years of misrule.

"This is a government of corruption, violation of the human rights, continued violence, waste of public resources," he told AFP in an interview.

Dogged by rumours of ill-health, he told Afghans in a live television debate with Karzai that a 12-year battle with stomach cancer was over and batted away public accusations of a violent temper.

An ethnic Pashtun born in a village near Kabul in 1949, Ghani left Afghanistan in 1977 to do a master's degree in anthropology, but was prevented from returning by the Soviet invasion and ensuing years of war.

During his time in exile, he earned a doctorate before taking on various academic positions at top US universities and joining the World Bank in 1991 as an anthropologist.

It was a job he held until he returned to Afghanistan after the 2001 US-led invasion overthrew the Taliban, when he was quickly drawn into international efforts to help his destitute and shattered nation.

He served as finance minister in Karzai's government between 2002 and 2004.

His stint resulted in a proud achievement -- the creation of the National Solidarity Programme, a project aimed at empowering the rural poor who comprise the bulk of Afghan society

Ashraf Ghani's official campaign site

The odds: The intellectual heavyweight on the candidate list, Ghani’s track-record is impeccable, some would say too impeccable, for the Afghan electorate. Ghani’s recruitment of James Carville -- Bill Clinton’s campaign strategist also known as the “ragin’ Cajun” -- raised eyebrows in Afghan circles. Some say it’s symptomatic of his disconnect from Afghan politics.

RAMAZAN BASHARDOST 

Ramazan Bashardost, a popular lawmaker who camps out in a tent near parliament, is Afghanistan's most eccentric candidate in the race for president but master of a popular anti-corruption campaign.

Bashardost belongs to Afghanistan's fiercely independent minority, the Hazara, who are of Mongolian descent but whose numbers are too small to ever expect to control the top office in war-torn and deeply tribal Afghanistan.
  
Although considered an eccentric with no hope of winning, an opinion poll released by a US organisation last week put him third place with 10 percent of the vote behind Karzai and former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.
  
The 48-year-old is a former planning minister whose brief stint in office was coloured by diatribes against rampant corruption that made him many enemies.
  
Armed with a battery of degrees from Afghanistan and Europe, Bashardost returned to Kabul nearly five years ago, determined to play a role in his home country after the US-led invasion ousted the repressive Taliban regime.
  
A son of civil servants with a doctorate from France, he lived in various French cities for 19 years.
  
Cultivating a humble image in a war-torn country that depends on billions of dollars of international aid to stay afloat, he was a year later elected to parliament for Kabul, securing the third-most votes for the province.
  
To cut down on petrol expenses he moved into a basic 15-square-metre yellow tent that is opposite parliament and where he receives a stream of constituents and sleeps on an old camp bed surrounded by books.
  
Despite earning 2,000 dollars a month, Bashardost lives on the cheap. "I use 20 percent for living and distribute 80 percent to poor people, orphans and refugees," he told AFP in a recent interview.
  
He lives alone and has never married. In winter, he beds down at his father's house in a modest Kabul neighbourhood.
  
His budget 20,000-dollar campaign to become Afghan president comes from funds drummed up mostly from Afghans living abroad.
  
He claims to have trodden the campaign trail across half the country. While the big-spending favourites dish up free meals to thousands of voters, Bashardost flogs posters and DVDs for just a few afghani (US cents).

Ramazan Bashardost's official website

OTHER CANDIDATES

Other candidates include former Taliban Mulla Abdul Salam Rakity who served as the Taliban’s governor in the southern province of Uruzgan when the Taliban seized power in most of Afghanistan. 

After the 2001 fall of the Taliban, Rakity switched sides and joined the international coalition-aided government side.

Frozan Fana -- wife of former Afghan Tourism and Aviation minister Abdul Rahman and Shala Ata -- is running on a socialist platform has vowed to follow the progressive policies of former Afghan President Mohammad Daud Khan, who was killed in a 1978 coup.

Abdul Ghafoor Zuri, one of the dozens of unknown candidates, said he has no money for a "fancy campaign."

"The first words I want to tell the people are: security all over the country, social justice, rule of law, and education for the people of Afghanistan," said Zuri, a 60-year-old from the western city of Herat who has worked in the commerce and finance ministries.

The Taliban have urged the country's 30 million people not to vote and have launched minor and scattered attacks on voting registration centers. But Taliban leaders have not said whether they will attempt a large-scale disruption of the election.