Warning to Aspiring Afghan Presidential Candidates: Leave the Guns at Home --- KABUL, Afghanistan — The deadline for registering as a candidate in Afghanistan’s coming presidential election was Sunday, and the election commission had a request for contenders: When you come to declare your candidacy, do not bring your gunmen. --- There is the professorial technocrat and the urbane diplomat, neither of whom has any natural constituency in Afghanistan. There is a man accused of being a pedophile who was once a darling of the Central Intelligence Agency, and another accused of war crimes who once tried to enact a law granting amnesty to people accused of war crimes. And then there is the candidate who would not even get the vote of his own brother, and his brother is President Hamid Karzai, the man they are all vying to replace. -- The early front-runner is Zalmay Rassoul, a polished former foreign minister who would be welcome in any Western capital but lacks a significant constituency in Afghanistan. --- Also running is Ashraf Ghani, a professorial former World Bank expert who most recently served as one of President Karzai’s top advisers. -- All told, 28 candidates were expected to register before midnight on Sunday. - More, NYTimes