Afghan election campaigns kick off amid security threats

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al-Jazeera, 3 February 2014

In this round-up about the first day of the Afghan election campaign, AAN's Thomas Ruttig is quoted as saying:

“The main problem is the legitimacy of the result, and that needs to be agreed on by all 11 contenders and the population on the whole so that they all feel included,” Thomas Ruttig, a co-director of Afghanistan Analysts Network, a think tank, told Al Jazeera. “Otherwise, the culture of solving problems with a gun will still be very widespread.” 

nd on the BSA:

“Karzai is concerned about the future of Afghanistan and his own political legacy,” said Ruttig. “That’s why he’s pushing the West so much at the moment — to help open a dialogue with the Taliban. He wants to go down in history as the one who got the peace effort on track.”