Karzai's powerful cousin killed, worsens strains over poll deadlock

Karzai's powerful cousin killed, worsens strains over poll deadlock By Jessica Donati KABUL Tue Jul 29, 2014 11:53am EDT Afghan policemen search people near the house of the cousin of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Hashmat Karzai, at the site of a suicide attack in Kandahar July 29, 2014. REUTERS-Ahmad Nadeem Afghan policemen stand guard near the house of the cousin of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Hashmat Karzai, at the site of a suicide attack in Kandahar July 29, 2014. REUTERS-Ahmad Nadeem Hashmat Karzai, cousin of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, speaks during a news conference in Kandahar March 28, 2014. REUTERS-Ahmad Nadeem Credit: Reuters/Ahmad Nadeem Related Topics World » Afghanistan » United Nations » (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai's powerful cousin, a close ally of presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani, was killed in a suicide bomb attack on Tuesday, officials said, deepening strains over an election marred by fraud and under a U.N.-monitored review. Hashmat Karzai was hosting an event for the Eid al-Fitr holiday at his home in the southern province of Kandahar, the cradle of the Taliban insurgency, when a man posing as a guest and described as well-dressed set off explosives, the local governor's office said. No one else was killed in the attack. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. The motives for the assassination were not immediately clear, but the killing deals another setback to hopes that the deadlock over the electoral contest to replace Hamid Karzai as president will be quickly resolved. A new president was initially due to be sworn in on Aug. 2, but Western diplomats say it could take weeks, possibly months, before a new leader officially takes office. The delays have fueled security concerns and uncertainty now hangs over a deal to keep U.S. troops in the country beyond the end of the year. Sources have expressed anxiety about continued bickering between Ghani and his rival Abdullah Abdullah despite a U.S.-brokered agreement this month to put aside their differences for the sake of national peace. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who visited Kabul this month, will probably have to make a follow-up visit to cajole Ghani, the winner according to provincial results, and Abdullah into forming a unity government, U.S. officials say. President Barack Obama has also urged the two Afghan candidates to iron out their differences. TRIBAL DIVISIONS An influential power broker in Kandahar province, Hashmat Karzai lived in the family's hometown and famously kept a pet lion and other exotic animals at his villa. His early support for Ghani ahead of the first round of the election drew attention to deep tribal divisions emerging in the Pashtun south and to an ongoing feud between Hashmat Karzai and his cousin, the president. Hashmat's influence in the province, a stronghold of the Pashtun ethnic majority, grew after the 2011 murder of another powerful relative, the president's half-brother Ahmed Wali. Hashmat was fiercely critical of the president and was known to have many enemies both within and outside the Karzai clan. Ghani said he was shocked by the killing of his adviser and condemned the act, a sentiment echoed by President Karzai. The deadlocked election that aims to transfer power democratically for the first time in Afghan history is taking place as most foreign troops prepare to leave by the end of the year after over a decade of war that ousted the Taliban in 2001. Millions of Afghans defied Taliban threats to vote in two rounds of the ballot, but mass fraud spoiled the election and the United Nations was asked to oversee a full-scale audit. The process is moving slowly and has already been suspended on three occasions due to bickering over technicalities. The audit has been further delayed this week by the Eid holiday and is not expected to resume until Thursday at the earliest. Underlining a lack of urgency on both sides, Abdullah and Ghani left Afghanistan this week for vacation. They are due back at the end of the week. An extended delay could jeopardise the future of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Their presence beyond 2014 hinges on a bilateral security deal that Karzai has refused to sign. The agreement would keep about 10,000 U.S. troops in the country and both Abdullah and Ghani have promised to sign promptly if elected. At least a quarter of the eight million votes cast are likely to be fraudulent, according to several diplomatic sources, who have been drafted into the process. A Western diplomat said that, while Ghani and Abdullah had agreed in principle to form a unity government, their disparate supporters have threatened to derail the compromise as they fear they might miss out on getting a slice of power. "For me, the election is dead and finished," said a Western diplomat on Tuesday, adding it might be impossible to determine who is the legitimate winner due to the scale of fraud. (Additional reporting by Jeremy Laurence; Editing by Jeremy Laurence, Robert Birsel and Gareth Jones)

Factbox: Main candidates in Afghanistan's presidential election

Sat, Apr 05 02:24 AM EDT KABUL (Reuters) - Voting was under way in Afghanistan's presidential election on Saturday, with about 12 million people eligible to choose between eight candidates. Here are brief descriptions of the three leading contenders. ASHRAF GHANI AHMADZAI The American-trained anthropologist returned to Afghanistan after the Taliban were ousted and held various government posts, including finance minister. Known in Afghanistan as Doctor Ashraf Ghani, he won about four percent of the vote in the last presidential election in 2009. One of Afghanistan's best-known intellectuals, Ghani spent almost a quarter of century abroad during the tumultuous decades of Soviet rule, civil war and the Taliban regime. During that period he worked as an academic in the United States and Denmark, and with the World Bank and the United Nations across East and South Asia. Within months of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, Ghani resigned from his international posts and returned to Afghanistan to become a senior adviser to Karzai. Ghani is among the strongest backers of a crucial bilateral security deal to keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014 that Karzai has refused to endorse. He has said he would sign it swiftly if elected. A Pashtun belonging to Afghanistan's biggest ethnic group, Ghani has defended his decision to pick ethnic Uzbek former warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum as a running mate. "The ticket is a realistic balance between forces that have been produced in the last 30 years and have a base in this society," Ghani told Reuters. ZALMAY RASSOUL The former foreign minister has been one of Karzai's closest confidants. His colleagues know him as a calm and soft-spoken statesman, who over his three years in the job accompanied Karzai on his official visits overseas. Rassoul also held roles in national security, being close to the president since the early days of his government, when Karzai was plucked from obscurity by the United states to lead Afghanistan after the Taliban were ousted in 2001. Critics say that, if elected, Rassoul - born in 1943 in a reputed Pashtun family in Kabul - would lack the strength and independence to make a break from the old administration, which has been accused of perpetuating a culture of corruption and inefficiency. ABDULLAH ABDULLAH A former ophthalmologist-turned-fighter of Soviet forces in the 1980s, Abdullah dropped out of a run-off against Karzai in the 2009 election, citing concerns about mass electoral fraud. An adviser to the late guerrilla leader Ahmad Shah Masood, Abdullah was foreign minister until his abrupt dismissal in 2006. Abdullah's base of support is in the ethnic Tajik community and, although he is half-Pashtun, he is best known for championing the causes and rights of Afghanistan's second-largest ethnic group, Afghan Tajiks. As a young man, Abdullah studied medicine at Kabul University and worked as an ophthalmologist until 1985. A year later he joined the Panjshir Resistance Front against the Soviets and served as an adviser to Masood, a national hero for many Afghans. Abdullah was foreign minister of the United Front - better known internationally as the Northern Alliance - from 1998 and, after Masood's assassination in 2001, became a dominant figure in the alliance that helped U.S. forces topple the Taliban. (Compiled by Kabul newsroom; Editing by John Chalmers and Clarence Fernandez)