KABUL (Dispatches) – Incumbent Afghan President Ashraf Ghani announced on Sunday that he had officially registered as a candidate for the upcoming presidential election.
"I am honored to register my nomination alongside @AmrullahSaleh2 & @VPdanesh for July elections. As a team of state builders, our focus will remain to be on building a strong, self-reliant state. In that effort, we won't compromise the state's legitimacy in service to our people," Ghani said via his official Twitter feed.
Amrullah Saleh, who has been serving as the country's interior minister for around a month, resigned on Saturday to run alongside Ghani as the candidate for the first vice president. Sarwar Danesh, in turn, will seek re-election as the country's second vice president.
At least ten other politicians have registered for the race so far, according to local media.
At the end of last year, the Afghan Independent Election Commission said that the election would be held on July 20, three months later than initially planned. Sunday marked the last day when candidates could enter the presidential race.
Former Afghan prime minister, warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar on Saturday announced that he will run in the country's presidential elections in July 2019, Afghanistan's 1TV channel reported.
The channel reported, citing Hekmatyar, that the former insurgent would run for the presidency as an independent candidate.
Hekmatyar noted that the current Afghan government was a reason for the continuing war in the country, and the system must be changed in a peaceful way.
Announcing his candidacy, Hekmatyar pledged to restore peace and security and said the current government had failed to end the war with the Taliban.
"Our country’s situation requires a powerful central government lead by an elected president supported by the majority of people,” he told a news conference in Kabul.
On December 30, the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan announced that the country's presidential election, initially scheduled for April 20, would be pushed back to July 20 due to the problems the country faced during the parliamentary elections in October 2018 and the preparation of talks on a peace agreement with the Taliban.
In September 2016, the Afghan government signed a peace agreement with Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e Islam faction, which has waged a violent insurgency against the government for the past 15 years. Since 2001 Hezb-e Islami has launched attacks on both U.S. and Afghan forces.
Hekmatyar headed a notorious opposition faction against the Afghan government during the 1979-1989 war. He served as prime minister in the mujahideen government when another war raged from 1992 to 1996, before defecting to help the Taliban take over the country.