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During the 2004 election, Karzai dropped Fahim from his ticket in favor of Massood, the exact opposite path that Karzai took this time. The Afghan constitution says the country's presidential vote was to have been held sometime this spring, but the Afghan election commission pushed back the date to August, saying it needed time to prepare logistics and for the country's security situation to improve. That decision meant the country could have faced a potential power vacuum, because Karzai's term was to have expired May 21. However, the Supreme Court decided that Karzai should stay on as president during the summer. Parliamentarians had threatened not to recognize Karzai after May 21, but more recently more than 100 legislators said they would recognize Karzai as president, meaning the country will likely not face major political upheaval in late May. Karzai registered just ahead of a Wednesday meeting in Washington with President Barack Obama and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, where the three are to discuss the increasingly perilous security situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The U.S. has increased its focus on Afghanistan this year, shifting its resources away from the Iraq conflict. Obama is sending 21,000 additional forces to bolster the record 38,000 U.S. troops already in Afghanistan in hopes of stemming an increasingly powerful Taliban insurgency.
[Associated
Press;
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