KABUL, Jan 10: President Hamid Karzai on Saturday said that he would be a candidate in Afghanistan's first democratic presidential elections and that he would try to hold them as scheduled in June.

"Yes, I am a candidate for the presidential post in the upcoming elections," Mr Karzai told reporters at a regular briefing in Kabul.

So far 274,000 Afghans, of the 10 million eligible, have been enrolled on electoral lists and of these only 59,000 are women.

Previously Karzai has said the polls might be delayed for several months due to logistical reasons. "We are trying to reach the date we have set for ourselves which is the month of June or July so we should try to do that," Mr Karzai said on Saturday when asked when the elections would be held.

The elections are one of the final planks of the Bonn peace accords after Afghanistan's loya jirga or grand assembly on Sunday approved the country's first post-Taliban constitution.

The document enshrines a strong presidential system of government alongside a bicameral parliament and states that men and women have equal rights and duties.

Mr Karzai said he was happy the loya jirga was a success but that more work needed to be done to implement the document.-AFP