Afghanistan takes first difficult steps toward democracy
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The election for president in Afghanistan may have brought us one small step closer to worldwide democracy. At least the people there left no doubt that they wanted to vote.
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On the eve of Afghanistan's first-ever direct presidential election, Muslim clerics urged Friday worshippers to embrace democracy, election workers scurried to ready voting booths and 100,000 troops went on high alert across the country.
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KABUL : Hamid Karzai was to be sworn in as Afghanistan&#39;s first democratically elected president under watertight security after remnants of the ousted Taliban regime threatened to disrupt the ceremony.
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With over 90 percent of the vote counted by late last week, it appeared likely that Afghan Transitional Administration Chairman Hamid Karzai would become the country&#39;s first directly elected president.
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What a difference the ballot makes. The election of Hamid Karzai as the first popularly elected president of Afghanistan is a dramatic affirmation of the power of democracy.
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Afghanistan&#39;s first direct ballot to choose a president opened today, bidding to take this country of tribal chieftains and medieval ways on an improbable but long-awaited engagement with Western-style democracy.
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Campaigning for Afghanistan&#39;s first direct presidential election began Tuesday, a crucial step in the nation&#39;s troubled transition to democracy after the fall of the Taliban nearly three years ago.
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After more than two decades of war, Afghanistan votes today in its first Presidential elections. And with the Taliban threatening to disrupt the polls, security is very tight across the country.
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A ring of steel was placed around the Afghan capital on Tuesday as Hamid Karzai prepared to be sworn in as the country&#39;s first popularly elected President at a ceremony
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With voting concluded, Afghans started the process of counting the ballots cast in the nation&#39;s first-ever presidential election -- one marred by opposition protests.
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The killing in Afghanistan spirals onward, undermining U.S. claims of success in pacifying the country with less than a week to go before an historic experiment with democracy &#151; direct presidential elections.
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Hamid Karzai was sworn in as Afghanistan's first democratically elected president promising to restore security to the war-shattered country three years after the fall of the Taliban.
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Hamid Karzai was sworn-in as Afghanistan&#39;s first directly-elected president amid tight security at his fortified Presidential Palace Tuesday.
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With over half the votes counted by Thursday, Hamid Karzai was on course to win Afghanistan's first democratic presidential election, the climax of momentous change brought by the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
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With security at its highest level since elections in October, Hamid Karzai was sworn in as Afghanistan&#39;s first popularly elected president in Kabul.
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HAMID Karzai was sworn in as Afghanistan&#39;s first democratically elected president last night, opening a new chapter for the impoverished nation that became the first battlefield in the US-led war on terrorism in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
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Hamid Karzai clinched a majority of the votes cast in Afghanistan's first presidential election, near-complete results showed Sunday, leaving him all but certain of becoming his war-wrecked nation's first democratically elected leader.