Brief Profiles of Presidential Candidates in Afghan elections
Pakistan Times Monitoring Desk

KABUL (Afghanistan): Eighteen candidates are contesting Afghanistan's first presidential elections on Saturday.

The following are brief profiles of the key figures and the names of their vice presidential running mates:

HAMID KARZAI

The favourite to win, Afghanistan's US-backed president cuts a dapper figure on the international stage, with his well-spoken English and tailored Afghan clothes.

An ethnic Pashtun, the 46-year-old from southern Afghanistan must win enough support from northern military commanders to secure victory.

Vice-presidents: Ahmed Zia Masood (Tajik), Karim Khalili (Hazara)

YUNUS QANOONI

Tipped as the top candidate of powerful anti-Taliban Northern Alliance commanders, Karzai's former education minister is now seen as his chief challenger in the presidential race.

The 47-year-old Tajik commands substantial support in the Panjshir valley, a stronghold of resistance against the Taliban north of Kabul.

Vice-presidents: Taj Mohammed Wardak (Pashtun), Sayid Husain Aalimi Balkhi (Hazara)

ABDUL RASHID DOSTAM

A whisky-drinking Uzbek warlord who fought for the Russians before changing sides and joining the mujahedin during the 1980s and 1990s, Dostam, 50, changed sides frequently.

He now commands a private militia near the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

Vice-presidents: Safiqa Habibi (female), Wazir Mohammed

MOHAMMED MOHAQEQ

A leader of the Hazara ethnic minority, Mohaqeq, 49, is a warlord who fought against the Soviets in the 1980s and now commands wide support in northern and central Afghanistan.

He was made vice president and minister of planning in Karzai's first interim government but was sacked as vice president in 2002 and as minister in March this year.

Vice presidents: Nasir Ahmad Insaf, Abdul Faiaz Mhiraain

ABDUL LATIF PEDRAM

The French-speaking 41-year-old poet is an ethnic Tajik committed to ending the Pashtuns' dominance of Afghanistan. He studied literature and philosophy and in the early 1990s.

He fled the Taliban regime in 1997 and tookrefuge in France, returning only this year to run for president with the express purpose of putting Karzai out of office.

Vice presidents: Haji Ahmad Nirow, Mohammed Qasim Masomi

MASOODA JALAL

The only woman running for president, the 41-year-old Tajik doctor and mother of three rose to prominence at the constitutional loya jirga in 2002 when she ran against Karzai in the vote to elect a transitional leader.

Vice-presidents: Mir Habib Sahily, Sayid Mohammed Aaliam Amini

AHMAD SHAH AHMADZAI

Ahmadzai, 61, an ethnic Pashtun, was a leader who once headed the government-in-exile over the border. He fled Afghanistan when the Taliban came to power and took refuge in Turkey and Britain, returning only after the Taliban's defeat in late 2001.

Vice presidents: Aminullah Shafajoo, Abdul Manna Urzgani

SAYED ISHAQ GILANI

Gilani, 49, is an ethnic Pashtun and Sufi intellectual from a respected Afghan family which claims descent from the Prophet Mohammad. He joined the anti-Soviet resistance movement in the 1980s. He is believed to have strong support among the Pashtun majority.

Vice-presidents: Mohammed Ismail Qasimyar, Baryali Nasraty

ABDUL SATAR SIRAT

A professor of Islamic literature, 67-year-old Tajik Sirat ran against Karzai to form an interim government in Bonn after the collapse of the Taliban in 2001 and won 11 votes to Karzai's three, but later swung his support behind Karzai.

Sirat had a varied career as a university lecturer, justice minister and attorney general and ministerial advisor prior to Soviet occupation and was the special envoy of Afghanistan's exiled king.

Vice-presidents: Qazi Mohammed Amin Waqad, Abdul Qadir Amini

ABDUL HAFIZ MANSOOR

A 41-year-old journalist and ethnic Tajik from the Panshir valley, Mansoor claims to represent the legacy of assassinated mujahedin commander Ahmad Shah Masood. A graduate of Kabul university's journalism faculty, Mansoor runs the weekly paper Payam-e-Mujahid (Mujahedin Message)

He served as acting minister of information and culture and the head of State TV and Radio immediately after the fall of the Taliban.

Vice presidents: Sayid Mohammeed Iqbal Manib, Mohammed Ayub Qasimi

HOMAYOON SHAH ASIFI

Asifi represents the National Unity Party of monarchists with ties to former King Mohammed Zahir Shah. He served as a minister in Zahir Shah's government before going into exile for over 20 years and working as an advisor to foreign firms on Afghanistan.

Homayoon, 64, studied law and political science at Dijon university in France.

Vice-presidents: Eng Abdullah Rahmatee, Dr. Nelab Mobarez (female)

ABDUL HASIB ARYAN

Ethnic Tajik Arian resigned as a police colonel to run for president after a decades-long career as a policeman. The 43-year-old father of five vows to give equal rights to women and not to campaign along ethnic lines.

Vice-presidents: Dil aqa Shkaib, Sayid Jahya

SAID ABDUL HADI DABIR

The 42 year-old Tajik was imprisoned by the communists and is a member of the anti-Soviet mujahedin Jamiat party.

Vice-presidents: Abdul Rashid, Dad Mohammed

ABDUL HADI KHALILZAI

The oldest candidate at 72, Khalilzai worked as a teacher and headmaster, later becoming a lawyer and prosecutor. An ethnic Pashtun, he was born in eastern Kunar province and studied law and religious jurisprudence at Kabul University.

Vice-presidents: Khidai Noor Mandokhil, Khdadad Urfani

MIR MOHAMMAD MAHFOZ NIDAII

An ethnic Pashtun, the 65-year-old lecturer at Kabul University studied science before doing a masters in management in Switzerland and a doctorate in geochemistry at Moscow University.

He was Karzai's minister of mines and industry before resigning to contest the polls. He has written several bookson politics and economics.

Vice-presidents: Sayid Mohammed Arif Ibrahim Khil, Mohammed Hakrim Karimi

MOHAMMED IBRAHIM RASHID

A 49-year-old father of two hails from a Pashtun family of landowners. Rashid studied in Germany and later worked with a Afghan-German refugee body.

Vice-presidents: Sayid Mohammed Hadihadi, Hamid Tahiri

GHULAM FAROOQ NIJRABI

A medical lecturer and pediatric surgeon, the 50-year-old ethnic Tajik trained medical students at the Indira Gandhi hospital in India and returned to lecture in Kabul University in 1983.

Vice-presidents: Abdul Fatah, Abdul Hanan

WAKIL MANGUL

An ethnic Pashtun, Mangal was born 1954 in Khost in eastern Afghanistan and studied zoology at Kabul University before getting his masters degree in the Soviet Union. He has edited Jihad magazine and published several books.

Vice-presidents: Mohammed Yunus Moghil, Dina Gul●