KABUL - President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani on Sunday officially registered to run for reelection in the July polls, with Amrullah Saleh and Sarwar Danish as his running mates.
In this electoral ticket, Saleh will run as first deputy presidential and Sarwar Danish, the sitting vice president, as second deputy presidential candidate.
Graduated from the Habibia High School in Kabul, Ghani completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the US University in Beirut in political science.
He grabbed his second master’s degree and doctorate degree from Colombia University in the US back in 1978.
He served as teacher in different international universities and appointed as senior World Bank advisor in 1991 and special UN representative in 2002.
In Afghanistan during post-Taliban era, Ghani worked as Kabul University Chancellor, finance minister and in charge of the security transition process in 2010.
Currently serving as the president of Afghanistan, Ghani told reporters here: “The first peace offer happened in my government and this government is committed bringing to peace and stability to the country. My team is committed not to deal over the honor of our security forces. “
“The biggest tribe is the poor people of our country who live in every corner of the country and the eradication of poverty and serving them is the priority of my team,” he said.
Ghani said the Independent Election Commission (IEC), the Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) and election watchdogs needed reforms and he would introduce ‘drastic reforms’.
Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah also registered his candidacy in the July 20 election on Sunday, the latest strong candidate to challenge Ghani.
Earlier, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Dr. Zalmai Rassoul, Abdul Latif Pedram, Mohammad Hakim Thorsan, Seyyed Noorollah Jalili, Inayatullah Hafez, Faramarz Tamanna, Shahab Hakimi and Mohammad Hanif Atmar have jumped into the presidential race.
According to the IEC, the candidate registration process would continue until Jan 20 and there is no plan to extend this process.
A presidential candidate should be a Muslim, Afghan citizen, having completed the age of 40 and should present 100,000 supporters and pay a million afghanis to the commission based on the electoral law. (Pajhwok)