AFGHAN PRESIDENT Hamid Karzai has said he is considering stepping down a year early, potentially clearing the way for his successor to manage the departure of foreign troops from Afghanistan.
Presidential elections are due in 2014, the same year western combat soldiers will complete their withdrawal.
Mr Karzai said he was weighing up concerns that managing big changes in leadership and security at the same time could be too heavy a strain on his country, after a decade with him in charge and foreign troops on the ground.
“I have been talking about this for some time now, and this is quite a good consideration, [whether] we cannot have all of that accomplished in 2014 because of the heavy agenda,” he told a news conference in Kabul, held with the visiting Nato secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
“Should we allow the transition process to complete itself in 2014, but bring the presidential election one year earlier to 2013?” Mr Karzai said.
He also raised the possibility of bringing the security handover forward. Earlier this year he called for a speeded-up transition schedule.
Influential Afghans were last week questioning whether the election could go ahead on schedule, with talk of either delaying the vote or bringing it forward by a year.
The independent election commission said then it would not move the date, and no one else has the authority to do so, but if Mr Karzai chose to resign it would probably precipitate a poll.
Mr Karzai, who was named interim president in 2002, won five-year terms in his own right in 2004 and 2009 and so is barred by the constitution from standing again.
He has repeatedly said he will not seek another term in office, but both Afghan rivals and western diplomats in Kabul have voiced concerns he may use worries about security and stability to extend his rule. According to an influential member of the Kabul establishment, Mr Karzai believes that, if elections cannot take place in 2014, “he will hang in there for a couple more years”. Even if he does step down from the presidency in 2013, he is unlikely to abandon politics entirely, one analyst and former official said.
“I don’t think that he is ready to give up power in the near future, but he is thinking of a creative solution acceptable both to Afghans and the international community,” said Davood Moradian, a political science professor at the American University of Afghanistan and former chief policy adviser to the Afghan foreign minister.
Dr Moradian said some of Mr Karzai’s advisers were attracted by the “Putin model”. Russian president Vladimir Putin stepped down as president after two terms, as required by his country’s constitution, but became a powerful prime minister and this year was re-elected as president. – (Guardian service)