When asked what they would do if Karzai rejected their call to resign, Sirat replied: "All 17 presidential candidates would boycott the polls." 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 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 with the exception of the president are required to step down from their positions 75 days before the polls.
Yesterday's meeting follows days of closed-door negotiations among candidates to establish alliances and decide 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 reached that point. However, it is one of the topics that we are discussing," he said. Sirat accused Karzai of misusing his power to influence the UN-backed electoral commission and said its members should resign, claiming it is filled with Karzai supporters and some parties are not represented at all.
