Afghan President Hamid Karzai is not secretly planning to change the country's constitution to seek a third term in power, his spokesman insisted on Saturday. Recent media reports, citing a document set out by Germany's foreign intelligence service, said Karzai was seeking special dispensation to guide the country through uncertainty after Nato ends its combat mission in 2014.
But Aimal Faizi said Karzai, the only leader in Afghanistan since the 2001 US-led invasion brought down the Taliban, was not planning to change the constitution, which allows two terms as president. "Karzai has no intention to remain in power after his second term," Faizi told AFP.
"The president has made it very clear, including in his loya jirga speech, that he will not run again," he said, referring to a speech at a traditional gathering of elders last month. Karzai was sworn in as interim leader of Afghanistan in December 2001, shortly after the US-led invasion toppled the Taliban. In 2004, he won the country's first direct presidential elections with 55.4 percent of the vote. But his re-election in 2009 was mired in allegations of corruption, in which challenger Abdullah Abdullah abandoned a second-round run-off and investigators threw out a third of Karzai's original votes because of fraud.