Karzai is considered the clear front-runner to win Afghanistan's second presidential election since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban regime. His strongest challengers in the Aug. 20 vote include former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani and former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah. Two women are also among the 41 candidates.
In announcing the final list of candidates, Azizullah Lodin, the head of Afghanistan's election commission, said he believed that many of the candidates were not qualified but said he had no power to remove them from the ballot.
"I personally feel ashamed that when I ask someone are you literate, and he says no. I ask if he has a professional background, and he says no. I ask if he was a mullah in a mosque, and he says no. And now he comes and registers himself and he wants to be president of Afghanistan. This is really shameful," Lodin told reporters.
During the country's first post-Taliban presidential election in 2004, 18 candidates ran for president. Karzai won in the first round with 55 percent, while the second placed finisher, Yunus Qanooni, the current speaker of the lower house of parliament, won 16 percent. Qanooni is not running this year.
A separate commission examined the original list of 44 candidates and removed two, though Lodin did not say why. A third candidate dropped out.
Lodin said the commission still faced potential hurdles with the remaining candidates. Afghanistan's constitution says presidential candidates must only hold citizenship in Afghanistan and not be a dual citizen. But Lodin said the commission has no mechanism to properly screen candidates for that qualification.
U.S. and other NATO forces are pouring into the country to help secure remote election sites and ensure a smooth voting process.
In the latest violence, a suicide car bomber hit a fleet of fuel tankers intended for a NATO base in southern Afghanistan, killing eight Afghans and wounding 21, officials said Saturday.
The attack in Helmand province late Friday burned six fuel tankers parked outside the town of Gereshk, said Dawood Ahmadi, the spokesman for the governor of Helmand. The trucks had been headed to a large NATO base that primarily houses U.S. and British troops.
The attack killed eight Afghan drivers or their assistants, said Abdel Ahad Khan, the Gereshk district chief. Twenty-one people were wounded, he said.
