Afghanistan election list released

Afghanistan's electoral authority has unveiled a final list of 41 candidates for the country's August 20 presidential poll.The number of candidates is less than the 44 people who had registered after two men were disqualified and one dropped out, Azizullah Lodin, the Independent Election Commission president, said on Saturday.David Chater, "There is only one person on this list that will get the vote, and that is Hamid Karzai [the Afghan president]."He only has 15 per cent in the opinion polls, but no one else is near him."There are only two women on the list, but the electoral commission is very proud of the high number of candidates,"."But there is a down side to that. Just to print the ballot papers, it is going to cost $123m, and each candidate must have 20 policemen to protect them."On the final list is Ashraf Ghani, the former finance minister, and Abdullah Abdullah, the former foreign minister, seen by many observers as the strongest challengers to Karzai who is going for a second term.