Afghan Election Canceled

Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan’s former prime minister, withdrew from a runoff presidential election scheduled for Nov. 7, less than one week before the event. On Nov. 2, the Independent Election Commission in Kabul, the capital, announced that President Hamid Karzai will serve a second term.

Abdullah withdrew Nov. 1, saying he did not think a “free and fair” runoff vote would be possible. The runoff was scheduled after people around the world questioned the results of an Aug. 20 presidential election. Last month, a United Nations panel found that more than one million votes cast in the August election were invalid. Thirty-six people ran in the first round, but the runoff election was only supposed to be between Abdullah and Karzai.

Ahmad Shah Durrani founded Afghanistan in 1747 after unifying the Pashtun tribes. Before becoming an Islamic republic in 2003, the country went through a number of changes. In the last century alone, the country has been a monarchy, a republic, a theocracy and a communist state. Afghanistan won its independence from British control in 1919.

The Taliban, a radical religious and political group, governed Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001. The regime was widely criticized for its treatment of women and support of terrorists. The Taliban did not allow girls to go to school or women to leave home without a male relative. Although its leaders were removed from power in response to the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, the Taliban has regrouped. Afghanistan, formally the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, held its first democratic presidential election in 2004, in which Karzai was declared the winner. Currently, the government has three branches: executive, legislative and judicial.

Afghanistan is considered one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world.