KABUL (Pajhwok): Eng. Mohammad Shahab Hakimi on Thursday registered as eighth presidential candidate with the Independent Election Commission (IEC) in Kabul.
Hakimi will run for the presidency, with Abdul Ali Surabi as his first and Dr. Noorul Habib Hasir as his second vice-presidential hopefuls.
Eng. Mohammad Shahab Hakimi holds a bachelor’s degree in agriculture from Kabul University and received his masters in administration from PSU university in Islamabad.
A former head of Mine Detection Center (MDC), Hakimi had headed the Afghans Against Mines Movement and lecturer of the agriculture faculty of Kabul University.
Talking to Pajhwok Afghan News, Hakimi said: “Afghanistan’s history spans over 5,000 years, but it faced with many bad events as a result of poor leadership of our former leaders in the government, we feel a vacuum in the country.”
He hoped his team, ‘Peace, Law and Prosperity’ would be able to fill the current vacuum and end all types of tribal discrimination and dependency on foreigners and eventually make Afghanistan a developed country.
About transparency of the July 20 presidential election, Hakimi said, “There are problems in the electoral regime, we observed the parliamentary elections, hoping serious reforms would come. Without reforms, the presidential elections are impossible or we await another worse poll.”
He opined the IEC should learn from past mistakes and problems happened in the parliamentary elections and should not repeat them in the presidential election.
About the ongoing peace process, he appreciated the efforts of US special envoy Zalmai Khalilzad and said peace should be established in the country by any possible way. “The war has affected our all political, development, economic and social sectors”.
Earlier, Dr. Zalmai Rassoul, with the slogan "national unity, justice, security, peace, moderation and equality," Abdul Latif Pedram, with the slogan "freedom, justice and security"; Mohammad Hakim Thorsan, with the slogan "We act, do not chant’; Seyyed Noorollah Jalili; Inayatullah Hafez and Faramarz Tamanna have nominated for the presidential election.
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.