Karzai to seek another term

Kabul, Afghanistan —- President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday he would seek re-election next year in hopes of finishing a job he said he hasn’t yet completed.

In an admission of some of his failures after four years in office, Karzai said Afghanistan does not yet have a functioning government, corruption remains rampant and the Afghan people “still suffer massively” in the fight against terrorism.

“So I have a job to do, a job to complete. In that sense, yes, I would like to run,” a relaxed-looking Karzai said in an interview in the presidential palace in the center of Afghanistan’s heavily fortified capital.

Dressed in a white shalwar kameez, the traditional dress of the region, Karzai reflected on his aspirations for Afghanistan, which is still struggling to recover seven years after the rigid religious Taliban regime were driven from Kabul.

“I have begun a task to rebuild Afghanistan into a peaceful, prosperous country, into a democratic country, a country where the Afghan people will have a voice and their rights respected, a country that will be producing on its own and living off its own means,” Karzai said.

“I have achieved some of those objectives. I have not achieved some of the other objectives,” he said. “Afghanistan is not at peace. The Afghan people still suffer massively in the war against terrorism and in the war for stability in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is not yet a well off country, still a very poor country.”

Karzai also acknowledged his country “does not have a properly functional government yet. It must get that.”

Some of the harshest criticism of Karzai has come from his inability to stem the flourishing opium drug trade in which his political allies and even his half brother Ahmed Wali, head of the Kandahar provincial council, have been implicated. Karzai has dismissed the allegations against his brother, but they have stuck.

With an election year looming, Karzai may be less inclined to make powerful enemies of some of the country’s political elite who are reputed to be involved in the drug trade.

His anti-corruption chairman, Izzatullah Wasifi, who himself spent time in an American prison on drug charges, complained in an interview that the government is not serious about eradicating drugs because senior government officials, from governors to police chiefs, are involved.

Karzai also lamented rampant corruption, conceding it was a major problem for his administration.

“With regard to corruption it’s a deeper problem, it’s an Afghan problem,” he said. “It’s the problem of an inefficient government machinery, it’s a problem of economy, procedures. It’s a problem of so much money coming into Afghanistan, it’s a problem of the international presence.

“It’s a problem I know will take time. It’s a problem I know the Afghan people want addressed and sooner rather than later.”