Afghan candidate in fighting form

KABUL, Afghanistan — Abdullah Shekeib Sattari can take a blur of heavy punches and stay on his feet, which makes him a prime candidate for Afghan politics.

Kabul's former light-heavyweight champion is running as an independent in the country's first parliamentary election since U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban regime four years ago.

Campaigning for the Sept. 18 vote officially began yesterday, but Sattari has been getting death threats for weeks from people who don't like political free agents.

"I am not afraid of anything now that I am in politics, just as I wasn't afraid in boxing even though I broke my nose, my teeth and my fingers," said Sattari, 28, a soft-spoken man known to his fans as Master Shekeib.

The boxer is one of 5,800 candidates from 72 political parties vying for seats on provincial councils and the lower house of parliament next month.

The largest party is headed by Younis Qanooni, a former minister of the interior and education, who ran a distant second to President Hamid Karzai in last October's presidential elections.

Competition for votes is especially tough in Kabul, the nation's capital, where Sattari is struggling for name recognition against 400 candidates on a seven-page ballot. Kabul will elect 33 of parliament's 250-member lower house, which is called the Wolesi Jirga, or House of the People.

A few candidates campaigned in Kabul yesterday. One, Shukria Barakzai, who is running as an independent, walked around a downtown market, urging people to vote for her.

"I will work for gender equality. I want peace and security," she told people as she handed out fliers with her name and photograph.

Afghans are expected to enthusiastically embrace their latest experiment with democracy despite the ousted Taliban threatening to target candidates and disrupt the polls and fear of intimidation by regional militia forces.

The main target for the Taliban remains the 20,000-strong U.S.-led force that started arriving in Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, but the hard-line Islamist group has already slain several election candidates and poll workers.

With around 11 million of Afghanistan's estimated 25 million people registered to vote, the election promises to be a logistical nightmare, with ballots even being delivered by donkey to inaccessible areas.

But at its conclusion, Afghanistan will have a democratically elected parliament and president for the first time in its history — a step its neighbors and the rest of the world hope will herald a period of economic growth and stability following nearly 30 years of conflict.

Karzai — whose Western backers have ensured plenty of aid and development money for Afghanistan since the Taliban's overthrow in 2001 — will have little to do with the elections apart from encouraging his countrymen to vote.

Having won by a landslide last October his position is secure for another four years, but Karzai will have checks put on his power when the new parliament sits.

Under a new electoral system, independents such as Sattari should have a fair chance of getting elected.

One of Sattari's political goals is to rescue Afghanistan's Olympic training program from what he and other athletes insist are crooked officials. The fighter had no political ambitions until an informal convention of trainers from various sports drafted him last year.

The light-heavyweight, whose campaign slogan is "defend the rights of youth and athletes," is counting on his boxing fame to make him stand out from the pack, which is dominated by old-guard politicians whom many Afghans blame for the country's widespread corruption and ruin.

Sattari retired from competitive boxing last year but still helps train the Afghan national team, which is trying to make the cut for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Numerous foreign donors, including Muhammad Ali, have given money to improve training facilities for various sports, but corrupt officials have stolen most of it, Sattari said.

Sattari estimates his campaign will cost $30,000. So far he's raised $10,000, most of it by trading in his car for a clunker and spending his savings. Political parties have offered him cash to join their ranks, but he insists on staying independent.

"I get death threats on my cellphone," he said. "They warn me to drop out of the elections. But I have decided that I will not step back. I will always step forward."

Additional information from Reuters and The Associated Press