Key Afghan presidential candidate courts female vote

By Golnar Motevalli

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan presidential hopeful Ashraf Ghani on Sunday identified women voters, long overlooked during harsh years of Taliban rule, as a key bloc in Aug. 20 elections.

Ghani, one of only a handful of serious rivals to President Hamid Karzai among a field of 40 challengers, outlined a seven-point plan to improve women's rights during an address to hundreds of female supporters in Kabul.

"Young women voters are an incredibly important voting bloc, not only because they are going to vote but because they are the future leaders of this country and their participation is going to change the landscape of this country," Ghani told reporters.

According to Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission, 38 percent of the country's 4.5 million newly registered voters are women. Overall figures for women voters from Afghanistan's roughly 30 million population are not yet available.

Few of the women in the crowd wore burkhas, the powder blue, head-to-toe Islamic covering worn by many Afghan women. Many were teenagers or university students wearing loose-fitting headscarves but few were willing to speak openly.

Ghani, a U.S.-educated anthropologist who served as finance minister under Karzai, said he would create 1 million new jobs in Afghanistan if elected, and at least 300,000 would go to women.

He also said he would appoint a team of 40 academics from across Afghanistan to encourage more young women to enrol in schools and universities and establish a women-only university as part of his policy to increase female literacy.

Ghani was introduced by a female mullah reciting the Muslim call to prayer, a tradition normally reserved for men.