Ghani registers for re-election

KABUL, Jan 20 (AFP): President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday formally registered as a candidate for Afghanistan's delayed presidential election, setting up a rematch with Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah in the July ballot.

Ghani, who is seeking a second term, was elected in a fraud-tainted poll in 2014 that was only resolved in a US-brokered power-sharing deal with Abdullah.

De facto prime minister Abdullah - Ghani's partner in the fragile unity government - is among at least 14 other candidates who have joined the race.

The president has replaced his current first vice president, Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, with Amrullah Saleh, an ethnic Tajik and a staunch opponent of the Taliban, for his 2019 ticket.

Ghani, an ethnic Pashtun, needs to expand his support beyond Afghanistan's largest ethnic group and build alliances with other ethnicities.

"A strong government can solve the current crisis. The crisis this country has faced in the past 40 years has been because of lack of a strong government," Ghani said.

But his presidency has been marred by growing militant violence, record civilian casualties, political infighting, deepening ethnic divisions and fading hopes for peace.