Karzai skips campaign trail, visits Germany instead

By PAUL HAVEN
The Associated Press

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The one-day trip had been announced, but the timing raised eyebrows as thousands of Afghan and international workers struggled to prepare for the Saturday vote amid threats by the Taliban and al-Qaida that they will try to block it.

The president's opponents have charged his frequent trips out of the country — and virtual shunning of the campaign trail — show he is fearful of his own nation and is out of step with ordinary people.

This is Karzai's third foreign trip since campaigning began Sept. 7, with visits to Tajikistan and the U.N. General Assembly in New York before this. He went to Berlin to receive a "United We Care" award at yesterday's German Unity Day celebrations. The awards are for outstanding accomplishment in politics, economics, society and culture.

Karzai, the overwhelming favorite among 18 presidential hopefuls, has rarely emerged from his palace during the campaign to visit his own country, largely due to security concerns.

In Berlin, Karzai said he hopes elections will bring a winner in a first round of voting without the need for a runoff. "I hope for all the good reasons that the elections will not go to the second round because it would be very expensive for us," he said.

Karzai survived a Sept. 16 assassination attempt on his first campaign trip out of the capital, when insurgents fired a rocket at his helicopter in the southeastern city of Gardez.

He spent one day inaugurating a road in the northern city of Sheberghan last month, his only successful foray out of the capital.

But Afghan politics comes down largely to tribal influence, and Karzai appears to have sewn up the support of most of the major leaders of Afghanistan's dominant Pashtun ethnic group, of which he is a member.

On Saturday, Karzai picked up the support of influential former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, an ethnic Tajik who led Afghanistan during its ruinous 1992-96 civil war.

Rabbani's spokesman, Mohammed Sidiq Chakari, said the former leader could bring thousands of ethnic Tajik followers with him.
 
Other candidates have been campaigning more actively.

Former Interior Minister Yunus Qanooni, considered Karzai's main challenger, has held rallies in recent days in the western city of Herat and in southern Kandahar.

Still, Karzai's challengers have all but conceded they cannot defeat him Saturday, though they say they hope to force a runoff by denying him the majority he needs for outright victory. Several challengers have suggested they will then band together to support whoever comes in second.

Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration said it was extending a three-day drive to register Afghan refugees in Pakistan for another day, until today.

The agency said 320,000 people had signed up in the first two days of registration, 20,000 lower than a provisional estimate given Saturday.