There are many candidates running for president, but I believe one of the candidates from southern Afghanistan would work hard to bring peace.

The tasks for a new president are many. We need economic opportunities, a fair court system, and national security. We need women’s education, health care for pregnant women, and to stop early marriage and protect women from physical and mental abuse. We need more freedom, modern thinking at the universities, and policies to get jobless people working inside Afghanistan so they do not have to leave our country.

Readers may have other favorites, but Gul Agha Sherzai, although not highly educated, worked hard to help Afghan people when he was governor of Nangarhar province and before as governor of Kandahar province.

His father Aji Abdul Latif ran a tea shop in Kandahar and became a famous Mujahideen commander, and he joined his father in the Mujahideen in southern Afghanistan fighting the Soviet invasion.

I was fourteen when I lived in Kandahar and he built parks and shrines and roads and a football stadium with a playground where families can go on holidays. He helped the poor. He said if he becomes president of Afghanistan he will make Kandahar like Dubai. I think if Kandahar can develop, so can other areas in Afghanistan.

In general everyone in politics is accused of some things, and I cannot know about everything that they have all done, but Afghanistan needs a president who will work hard. I think Gul Agha could bring change to Afghanistan, as President Karzai has done.

By Sadia

Gul Agha Sherzai (center) at a press conference in Kabul in 2014. PAJHWOK/Bais