The Taliban and other insurgent leaders could stand as candidates in Afghanistan's next presidential election, to be held in April 2014, the country's top poll official said Wednesday. President Hamid Karzai, who is serving his second term as leader of the war-torn nation, is constitutionally barred from running in the election and no clear candidate to succeed him has yet emerged. The vote, scheduled for April 5, 2014, is seen as crucial to Afghan stability after the withdrawal of NATO troops and Fazil Ahmad Manawi, the head of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) insisted his body would act impartially. "We are even prepared to pave the ground for the armed opposition, be it the Taliban or Hezb-i-Islami, to participate in the election, either as voters or candidates," Manawi told a news conference. "There will be no discrimination," the IEC chief added, defending the body in response to a question about its impartiality. Hezb-i-Islami is the faction of former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar which wages an insurgency along with the Taliban against Karzai's Western-backed government. Under the IEC timetable, initial results of the election will be announced on April 24 and final results on May 14, with May 28 set aside for any potential run-off vote. The 2009 poll, in which Karzai was reelected over former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, was marred by widespread allegations of fraud, and the credibility of the 2014 vote is seen as key to avoiding an escalation in violence after the NATO withdrawal.
