Lewal, Abdali jump into July presidential race

KABUL) in Kabul.

Lewal was accompanied by his first running mate Dr. Abdul Hadi Zolhekmat and second running mate Mohammad Yeha to the IEC office on Sunday evening.

Talking to journalists, Lewal said: “Bringing peace and security to the country will be my top priority if I win the election.”

Lewal said the current National Unity Government (NUG) had failed to solve people’s problems and claimed his team had special programs to deal with injustices, insecurity and other challenges of the country.

Meanwhile, Shaida Mohammad Abdali, a former Afghan envoy to India, also registered his candidiacy in the July presidential election with the IEC. He has picked Basir Salangi as his first and Zulfiqar Omid as second vice-presidential candidates.

Talking to journalists, Abdali said, “With the help of God and support of the people of Afghanistan, I have jumped into the presidential race. My team’s “Participation and Change”, will work to bring peace, stability and positive changes to the country if wins the election.”

Abdali further said he had an inclusive plan for peace and ending the ongoing conflict. He termed people’s participation in the peace negotiations as important and said without people’s participation, the peace process would produce no meaningful result.

Earlier in the day President Ashraf Ghani and CEO Dr. Abdullah Abdullah registered their candidacies in the July 20 election.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Dr. Zalmai Rassoul, Abdul Latif Pedram, Mohammad Hakim Thorsan, Seyyed Noorollah Jalili, Inayatullah Hafez, Faramarz Tamanna, Shahab Hakimi and Mohammad Hanif Atmar have also jumped into the presidential race.

According to the IEC, the candidate registration process would continue until Jan 20 and there is no plan to extend this process.

A presidential candidate should be a Muslim, Afghan citizen, having completed the age of 40 and should present 100,000 supporters and pay a million afghanis to the commission based on the electoral law.

pk/ma