Reports indicate that some key members of presidential candidate Mohammad Haneef Atmar’s team have held talks with Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah and his team members days after the Peace and Moderation team’s campaign suspended.
Members of Abdullah’s campaign said that Salahuddin Rabbani, Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs and head of Jamiat-e-Islami party, has met with Mohammad Yunus Qanooni, Atmar’s running mate in the upcoming presidential election, and Atta Mohammad Noor, a key figure of Jamiat party and a key supporter of Peace and Moderation Team.
The Peace and Moderation election campaign team led by former National Security Advisor Mohammad Haneef Atmar on Thursday informed of suspending their campaign in the view of evolving political situation in the country.
The peace process and the Afghan government’s “extralegal actions” were two other reasons for the decision.
Mr. Atmar is accompanied by former vice president Mohammad Yunus Qanuni and former deputy chief executive Mohammad Mohaqiq as his first and second running mates respectively.
A spokesman of the team, Qadir Shah, told TOLOnews on Friday that their campaign has been suspended for an unknown time.
Despite that, the Peace and Moderation team has brought peace efforts as a reason to suspend their activities, but sources said that the campaign has been stopped due to failure of the leadership of the team.
“Our talks are underway with a number of influential figures and leadership of Peace and Moderation team. We hope that the talks will yield a result soon,” said Fraidoon Khwazoon, a spokesman for Abdullah’s campaign team.
Sources said that all 93 campaign offices of Mr. Atmar have been closed, except the central office in Kabul.
“They will join other teams for their own interests. We will witness this in future,” said Abdul Zahir Tamim, an MP.
A spokesman of Mr. Atmar’s campaign team, Qadir Shah, said that the team has not collapsed.
But he did not reject meetings between Mr. Atmar’s team members with other campaign teams.
He said that they will not resume their campaign until there is a full guarantee on a transparent election.
“There is no trust whether we will have a transparent election. Our leaders will decide if the situation changes,” Mr. Shah said.