KABUL, Jan 22: A leader of Afghanistan's minority Hazara community announced Thursday plans to run against President Hamid Karzai in the country's first democratic elections later this year.

Mohammad Mohaqiq, Minister of Planning in Karzai's US-backed government, will be the first Hazara presidential candidate in the history of the war-torn, multi-ethnic country.

"As a Hazara and a citizen of Afghanistan, I also have the right to ask my fellow Afghans to vote for me," Mohaqiq said. "I'm going to prove that being Hazara is no longer a crime in this country and that one Hazara can also contest the presidency of Afghanistan."

Mohaqiq, widely thought to enjoy the backing of Iran, has support among the estimated one million Hazaras in the country, mainly concentrated in the central belt known as Hazarajat. But Mohaqiq faces an uphill battle against the broadly popular Karzai, who is from the Pashtun community which accounts for some 40 per cent of Afghans.

The adoption of a new constitution on January 4 by a grand assembly or loya jirga has paved the way for the country's first democratic elections. According to the UN, the rate of voter registrationwill not permit the elections to take place on time.-AFP