Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Thursday, March 28th, 2024

Coalition of Political Parties to Nominate One Candidate for President

Coalition of Political Parties to Nominate One Candidate for President

KABUL - In an exclusive interview with TOLOnews, Ahmad Zia Massoud, Chairman of the Afghanistan National Front (ANF), announced that a number of political parties have agreed to form a single coalition that will nominate one candidate for the April 5th, 2014 Presidential election.

"We have had several meetings during the month of Ramadan with different parties and politicians. These meetings have helped us to reach a decision on forming a single coalition party that will nominate a candidate for the upcoming election," said Mr. Massoud.

The parties who have accepted the proposal include the Jamiat-e-Islami Party, Hezb-e-Isalmi Party, National Coalition Party (NCP), National Front Party (NFP), Green Movement Party (GMP), Hezb-e-Wahdat Party and Junbesh-e-Milli Party. According to Mr. Massoud, the candidate nominated by the coalition will be chosen after consultations with members of all the participant political parties.

The formation of the coalition should come as good news to the Independent Election Commission (IEC) and foreign democracy-promoting organizations, which have cautioned about the dangers of having an overcrowded field of candidates in the upcoming election. Just over a month ago, IEC officials urged Afghan political parties to create a coalition like the one Mr. Massoud about in order to avoid that very situation.

Mr. Massoud said that talks are in progress with the Rights and Justice Party (RJP) and Afghan Millat (AMP) to get their parties to join. He added that within the next 10 days the finalized formation of the coalition would be officially announced.

"We expect that the coalition will be officially announced within the next 10 days and several parties mainly Jamiate Islami Party, Hezb-e-Islami Party, Wahdat Milli Party, National Coalition, National Front, Junbesh-e-Milli Party and Green Movement will be a part of this coalition," Mr. Massoud told TOLOnews.

The official window for filing nominations for the Presidential and Provincial Council elections has been scheduled by the IEC to begin on September 16th. (Tolo News)