VARIOUS: PROFILE OF PRESIDENT HAMID KARZAI WHO IS FAVOURITE TO WIN THE OCTOBER ELECTIONS.
Record ID:
442977
VARIOUS: PROFILE OF PRESIDENT HAMID KARZAI WHO IS FAVOURITE TO WIN THE OCTOBER ELECTIONS.
- Title: VARIOUS: PROFILE OF PRESIDENT HAMID KARZAI WHO IS FAVOURITE TO WIN THE OCTOBER ELECTIONS.
- Date: 28th September 2004
- Summary: (W3) KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN (FILE) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. WS: AFGHAN PRESIDENT HAMID KARZAI CUTTING RIBBON FOR NEWLY-BUILT KABUL-KANDAHAR ROAD. 0.03 (W3) SALANG PASS, AFGHANISTAN (FILE) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 2. VARIOUS: KARZAI REOPENING SALANG PASS BY CUTTING RIBBON WITH SCISSORS. (5 SHOTS) 0.32 (W3) QUETTA, PAKISTAN (FILE - OCTOBER 21, 2001) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 3. PAN: MULLAHS SITTING WITH THEN SHAH'S EMISSARY, HAMID KARZAI. / SCU: MULLAHS 0.39 4. MV: (SOUNDBITE) (English) HAMID KARZAI, THEN EMISSARY OF THE FORMER KING OF AFGHANISTAN They have come and taken over our country. They have murdered our people. Osama bin Laden and his associates - they first committed murder in Afghanistan and then they went to the rest of the world." 0.52 (W3) KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (FILE) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 5. VARIOUS: KARZAI ARRIVES (2 SHOTS) / HUGS QANOONI AND DEFENCE MINISTER MOHAMMAD QASIM FAHIM. 1.15 6. WS: OF CEREMONY OF TRANSFER OF POWER FROM FORMER AFGHAN PRESIDENT RABANI TO KARZAI. 1.18 7. MV: KARZAI WITH DEFENCE MINISTER MOHAMMAD QASIM FAHIM AND POWERFUL ETHNIC UZBEK COMMANDER ABDUL RASHID DOSTUM. 1.32 8. WS/EXTERIOR: SCENE. 1.35 9. VARIOUS: KARZAI WITH FAHIM. 1.42 10. SCU: FAHIM WITH OTHERS. 1.45 11. SCU: KARZAI TALKING AND SHAKING HANDS. 1.50 12. MV: KARZAI WALKING WITH OTHERS. 1.54 13. TRACK: KARZAI SALUTES AS MILITARY BAND PLAYS. 2.01 14. CU: AFGHAN FLAG. 2.05 15. MV: KARZAI WITH U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY DONALD RUMSFELD. SCU: KARZAI. / SCU: RUMSFELD. 2.17 16. SCU/CU: KARZAI SHAKING HANDS WITH U.S. SOLDIERS. (2 SHOTS) 2.27 17. WS: KARZAI THANKING U.S. TROOPS. 2.29 18. SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (English) SPEECH THANKING U.S. TROOPS. 2.39 19. MV: US. TROOPS APPLAUDING. 2.42 20. VARIOUS/NIGHT: KARZAI WITH BRITISH PRIME MINISTER TONY BLAIR. (2 SHOTS) 2.59 21. VARIOUS: KARZAI GETTING OFF PLANE WITH KING ZAHIR SHAH. (3 SHOTS) 3.18 22. SCU: KARZAI DOING POLIO IMMUNISATION. 3.28 23. WS: GOVERNMENT EVENT. 3.32 24. SCU: KARZAI WHISPERING TO FAHIM DURING A GOVERNMENT EVENT. 3.37 25. VVARIOUS: KARZAI RECEIVING CHEQUE FROM PAKISTANI PRESIDENT PERVEZ MUSHARRAF. 3.58 (W3) KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN (FILE) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 26. VARIOUS: OF SECURITY RUNNING AROUND DURING ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON KARZA./ICU: DEAD BODY. (3 SHOTS) 4.07 (W3) GHOR, AFGHANISTAN (FILE) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 27. VARIOUS: KARZAI SURROUNDED BY U.S. BODYGUARDS. (3 SHOTS) 4.22 (W3) KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (FILE) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 28. KARZAI WALKING IN PALACE / SNIPERS ON ROOF 4.36 (W3) KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (RECENT) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 29. MV: INTERVIEW WITH ANDREW WILDER, DIRECTOR, AFGHANISTAN RESEARCH AND EVALUATION UNIT . 4.39 30. SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (English) ANDREW WILDER, DIRECTOR, AFGHANISTAN RESEARCH AND EVALUATION UNIT SAYING: "I think he's perceived to be a relatively weak leader and terribly indecisive and someone who has spent the last two-and-a-half years making deals to survive rather than providing bold leadership at a time when Afghanistan needed more leadership." 4.57 (W3) KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (FILE) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 31. SCU: KARZAI SEATED NEXT TO DOSTUM DURING MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR SLAIN SON OF FORMER HERAT GOVERNOR ISMAEL KHAN. 5.00 32. SCU: KARZAI. 5.04 33. SCU: FAHIM PRAYING. 5.07 34. MV/ZOOM IN/SCU: KARZAI HUGGING KHAN. 5.15 (W3) KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (RECENT) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 35. SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (English) WILDER SAYING: "He does not have his hand tainted with the blood of the last two decades. He does not have that bad reputation. He also has a reputation, I think, for being a good Muslim, which is important in this country; he doesn't have a reputation for being terribly corrupt, although some of his family members do; and I think most important, more so than any other candidate at this point, he has some multi-ethnic appeal across the country and none of his rivals at this point, I think, have multi-ethnic appeal." 5.47 (W3) PANJSHIR VALLEY, AFGHANISTAN (FILE) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 36. MV: KARZAI PRAYING AT GRAVE OF AFGHAN LEADER AHMAD SHAH MASOOD. 5.52 37. SCU: KARZAI PRAYING. 5.56 38. MV: KARZAI WITH OTHER AFGHAN LEADERS PRAYING. 6.00 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 13th October 2004 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: VARIOUS LOCATIONS IN AFGHANISTAN/ QUETTA, PAKISTAN/ WASHINGTON D.C., UNITED STATES RECENT AND FILE
- City:
- Country: Afghanistan USA Pakistan United States
- Reuters ID: LVABDFFA1BWMBRTDIQG5WTY3SYFX
- Story Text: President Hamid Karzai lives dangerously in Afghan
hotseat.
His fluency in several Afghan languages, his
first-name friendships with world leaders and his
familiarity to voters across the country should guarantee
success for Afghan President Hamid Karzai in October
elections.
But with Taliban insurgents attacking government
targets and 17 competitors, including tribal warlords and
embittered former allies, Karzai's victory when Afghans
vote on October 9 in their first ever presidential election
may not be assured.
The urbane, 46-year-old Karzai, who was chosen by a
select group of his peers to rule Afghanistan, at least
temporarily, after the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, is
nonetheless the clear favourite.
In a society riven by ethnic divisions and myriad feuds
among powerful warlords, Karzai's authority has often
seemed more symbolic than real and he could not have held
onto power without Western military and financial support,
especially from the United States.
Even with the backing of some 18,000 U.S.-led troops,
8,000 NATO-led peacekeeping troops and a newly formed
Afghan army numbering more than 14,000, Karzai has not
dared take on the warlords, instead nurturing fragile
alliances across the country.
His efforts to rein in powerful factional leaders and
extend his writ outside the capital have often backfired,
and opponents have derisively labelled him the "Mayor of
Kabul".
This, according to analysts, paints a picture of a weak
leader.
"I think he's perceived to be a relatively weak leader
and terribly indecisive and someone who has spent the last
two-and-a-half years making deals to survive rather than
providing bold leadership at a time when Afghanistan needed
more leadership," said Andrew Wilder, a director of an
independent think-tank in Afghanistan.
A prime target of remnants of the Taliban regime and
their Islamist allies, Karzai is one of the most protected
men in the country. On Sept. 5, 2002, he narrowly escaped
an assassination attempt in the southern city of Kandahar.
Balding with a trim salt-and-pepper beard, Karzai is
chief of the Popalzai tribal group of the Pashtuns, the
largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, and hails from a
royalist family with a tradition of public service.
Since taking over as Afghan president, he has become
somewhat of a fashion icon in the West with with his
lambskin karakul hat, chapan long coat and assortment of
silk shawls. Gucci guru Tom Ford has called him the most
chic man on the planet and Esquire magazine put him on a
list of the world's best-dressed men.
Born in Kandahar on December 24, 1957, the fourth of
seven sons, Karzai went to school in Kabul before going to
India to study political science.
Politics became his passion, and he did not marry until
his 40s when he wed an Afghan doctor active in helping
refugees in Pakistan. They have a young daughter.
Karzai and his relatives, like millions of Afghans,
fled to Pakistan after the 1979 Soviet invasion. In exile,
he helped fund and arm anti-Soviet fighters from the area of Kandahar.
Karzai became deputy foreign minister from 1992 to 1994
after mujahideen guerrillas overthrew the Soviet-backed
government.
He quit as the government collapsed in internecine
strife that reduced whole districts of Kabul to rubble.
When the Taliban began their march to power from Kandahar
in 1994, Karzai voiced support in the hope they would end
chaos and lawlessness.
But within a few months he split with the movement,
denouncing it as manipulated by Pakistani and Arab
extremists.
Karzai and his father began campaigning against the
Taliban in 1997 from exile in Quetta, the Pakistani city
closest to Kandahar. In July 1999, his father was
assassinated while walking home from evening prayers, an
attack blamed on the Taliban.
Karzai has nevertheless held out hope of coming to an
accommodation with more moderate Taliban elements as a
means of controlling an insurgency that shows no sign of
waning.
His U.S. connections and high international profile
have helped him persuade wealthy nations to commit to
post-war reconstruction. They also leave him vulnerable to
charges of being a foreign puppet.
Indeed, in Kabul, he spends much time closeted with
Afghan-born U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, whose role
often appears closer to that of a pro-consul than a
diplomatic representative of a foreign power.
But Wilder says this close relations with the Americans
could work for Karzai in terms of securing military and
economic support.
His biggest strength, however, according to Wilder is
his clean image.
"He not have his hand tainted with the blood of the
last two decades. He does not have that bad reputation. He
also has a reputation, I think, for being a good Muslim,
which is important in this country; he doesn't have a
reputation for being terribly corrupt, although some of his
family members do; and I think most important, more so than
any other candidate at this point, he has some multi-ethnic
appeal across the country and none of his
rivals at this point, I think, have multi-ethnic appeal,"
said Wilder.
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