Presidential campaigns have opened up on Sunday, with 11 candidates on board, and violence already in the air.
In light of the violence that will be sure to take place around the campaigns and voting sessions, each of the candidates will have protection. Each person will have three armored vehicles, three pickup trucks, and 35 armed policemen for protection.
Although protection has been put into place, 2 aides have been shot and killed. Ahmad Hamdard and Shujahideen were aides for Abdullah Abdullah, one of the candidates. A spokesman for Abdullah said that the two were “shot in the fourth district of Herat city this evening. Unidentified gunmen opened fire on them in the middle of street,” according to i24news.
The new President will succeed President Hamid Karzai, who cannot run for another term because he has run Afghanistan for 12 years after he ousted the Taliban Islamic regime that was holding al-Qaida’s leadership after 9/11, according to the Associated Press.
The candidate’s names are Ghani, former finance minister in Pashtun, and his partner Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, Zalmai Rassoul, former foreign minister, and his partner, Ahmad Zia Massoud, Abdul Rab Rasoul Sayyaf, linked to Arab militants, Qayyum Karzai, brother to the President, Dawoud Sultanzoi, Abdul Rahim Wardak, Sardar Mohammad Nadir Naeem, Qutbuddin Hilal, Gul Agha Sherzai, and Hidayat Amin Arsala, and Dr. Abdullah Abdullah.