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Mass rally on last Afghan campaign day

Agence France Presse - August 17, 2009

Massoud Hossaini – A sea of Afghans waving flags and championing presidential hopeful Abdullah Abdullah staged a spectacular rally on the last day of campaigning Monday for key elections overshadowed by Taliban threats.

Afghanistan's 17 million voters go to polls Thursday to elect a president for the second time in history and 420 councillors in 34 provinces in a massive operation clouded by insecurity and logistics headaches.

President Hamid Karzai, who has ruled since the late 2001 US-led invasion overthrew the Taliban regime, is tipped to win but a strong campaign from former foreign minister Abdullah has raised the chance of a run-off.

Thousands of people poured into a Kabul stadium – a once notorious Taliban execution ground – wearing blue baseball hats, carrying pictures of Abdullah and chanting his name over and over again.

In a vote stunt rare for Afghanistan, a helicopter circled overhead, dropping hundreds of papers marked with Abdullah's photo, election sign and number as marked on the ballot paper to help even the illiterate majority vote.

"Hey compatriots, wake up, it is time for a big change," said the papers written in the three most common Afghan languages, Dari, Pashtu and Uzbeki.

"Our favourite candidate, Abdullah Abdullah," and "our good future, Abdullah Abdullah," shouted the crowd in between the former minister's speech studded with rhetoric denouncing election favourite Karzai.

"Do you want to vote for the president who releases killers from jail, who releases opium traders from jail?... I will work hard for the people," Abdullah shouted in the microphone flanked by a battery of photographers.

Afghanistan is expected to mobilise all available security resources in a bid to protect voting centres on Thursday and overcome fears that poor voter turnout because of insecurity could jeopardise the legitimacy of the polls.

About 200,000 Afghan security forces and the 100,000 US and NATO troops will provide security in a three-cordon formation putting foreign forces on the periphery, followed by Afghan soldiers and then police at polling stations.

Despite the influx of thousands of extra US troops and multiple offensives designed to crush rebel resistance, election officials say insecurity could close up to 12 percent of the nearly 7,000 planned polling stations.

On Sunday, the Taliban threatened for the first time to attack polling stations, escalating their bid to derail the polls and destabilise the Western-backed government in the impoverished and largely rural country.

The Taliban threat was made in leaflets, pinned up and dropped in villages in the south, and authenticated by a spokesman who said the militia would accelerate its bloody campaign of violence on the eve of the elections.

There has been progress since the collapse of 1996-2001 Taliban regime but many people are frustrated: despite billions of US dollars of international aid, most Afghans lack electricity, roads are bad, jobs are scarce, corruption rife.

Karzai, whose office did not immediately confirm a final campaign event Monday, came under fire for his controversial alliances with warlords during a first television election debate attended by an Afghan head of state.

In a 90-minute head-to-head broadcast Sunday, he was criticised by outspoken anti-corruption campaigners, ex-finance minister Ashraf Ghani, and eccentric but popular Kabul lawmaker Ramazan Bashardost, over the alleged deals.

The alleged deals, which could see Karzai win the August 20 vote, have disillusioned Afghans and Western backers of the country's move towards democracy after the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the extremist Taliban regime.

Karzai has picked Mohammed Qasim Fahim, accused of a range of abuses including during the 1990s civil war, as his first vice president and has also won over other ethnic and factional leaders who have substantial followings.

They include infamous warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum who returned to Afghanistan late Sunday from Turkey where he has been for almost a year.

The debate put Karzai in the rare position of facing some of his harshest critics and he came under fire for pulling out of an earlier debate in July.

Ghani, who is running on a campaign of clean governance, job creation and economic development, set out for the eastern city Jalalabad, leading a convoy of supporters in a three-hour drive from Kabul, said an AFP reporter.

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