By Abbas Ali

Afghans are going to vote on August 20, 2009 for the second time, electing their own president after the Taliban regime was toppled by US-led invasion in 2001.

Afghans walk past election billboard of Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai in Herat, western Afghanistan August 18, 2009.[Xinhua]

Among all the remaining 32 nominees for the office of presidency, incumbent President Karzai is leading in popularity and favor. A latest poll based in US showed that Karzai enjoyed 44 percent votes while his main rival Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, who has served in the previous Government of President Karzai as Foreign Minister, got 26 percent.

Dr. Ramazan Bashardost is the third famous candidate followed by Dr. Ashraf Ghani Ahmedzai on 4th. Nevertheless, the real competition will be between Karzai and Abdullah.

Seeing the tough campaign among the top candidates, many expect a runoff voting as Dr. Abdullah Abdullah and other top rivals of President Karzai strongly believe.

According to Afghan electoral law, if any candidate fails to obtain more than 50 percent of the valid votes cast, there will be a runoff election between the two most voted candidates within two weeks following the announcement of election results.

Earlier, there were speculations that top rivals of President Karzai may make an alliance, but it could not happen by Monday night when the campaign period ended.

Contrary to this, hours before the campaign time ended, five candidates including Hidayet Amin Arsala, former Finance Minister pulled out of the race in favor of Hamid Karzai. Three other candidates had withdrawn in favor of Karzai earlier.

There was only one candidate who withdrew in favor of Abdullah Abdullah, the most serious challenger of Karzai. Meanwhile at the last hours, many campaign officials of Dr. Abdullah from five central provinces joined the camp of President Karzai. All of them have asked their supporters to vote for Karzai.

President Karzai, who was already leading in popularity by a big margin of difference from his top rival, is now stronger with the new withdrawals. Another influential joining in his camp was the former warlord Ismail Khan, an ethnic Tajik who has large supporters in Herat where Karzai addressed a huge public gathering last week.

Ismail Khan will attract majority Tajik votes from Herat--a province with larger Tajik population--against Karzai's rival, Abdullah whose majority vote bank is from Tajiks.