(Angus Reid Global Monitor) – Afghanistan’s president is well positioned to secure a victory in an upcoming ballot but he may have to face a contender in a run-off vote, according to a poll by Glevum Associates. 45 per cent of respondents would vote for Hamid Karzai in this month’s election.
(Angus Reid Global Monitor) – Afghanistan’s president is well positioned to secure a victory in an upcoming ballot but he may have to face a contender in a run-off vote, according to a poll by Glevum Associates. 45 per cent of respondents would vote for Hamid Karzai in this month’s election.
Independent candidate and former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah is a distant second with 25 per cent, followed by former planning minister Ramazan Bashardost with nine per cent, and former finance minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai with four per cent. 17 per cent of respondents would support other candidates.
Afghanistan has been the main battleground in the war on terrorism. The conflict began in October 2001, after the Taliban regime refused to hand over Osama bin Laden without evidence of his participation in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Al-Qaeda operatives hijacked and crashed four airplanes on Sept. 11, 2001, killing nearly 3,000 people.
The United States-led Operation Enduring Freedom and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) currently command the war on terrorism in Afghanistan.
According to an account by the Associated Press, more than 2,310 insurgents have been killed in Afghanistan in 2009 alone.
Karzai has been Afghanistan’s president since November 2004, when he won the first-ever presidential election in the country with 55.4 per cent of all cast ballots. Before that, he headed an interim government for two years.
On Aug. 10, Ghani claimed that a "weakening" Karzai has offered him a power-sharing deal. The former finance minister declared: "An offer was made. It was for a position as ‘chief executive’ [in the Cabinet]. The details were not worked out. I am not discontinuing my election campaign."
The presidential election is scheduled for Aug. 20. If no candidate garners more than 50 per cent of the vote in the first round, a run-off featuring the top two vote-getters must take place at a later date.
Polling Data
If the election for president were being held today and you had to decide right now, could you please point to the candidate [ON LIST] for whom you would vote for president?
|
Hamid Karzai |
45% |
|
Abdullah Abdullah |
25% |
|
Ramazan Bashardost |
9% |
|
Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai |
4% |
|
Other candidates |
17% |
Source: Glevum Associates
Methodology: Interviews with 3,556 Afghan adults, conducted from Jul. 8 to Jul. 17, 2009. Margin of error is 1.6 per cent.
