"I decided to run because people in politics today are the same old faces. I wanted to be the candidate with new ideas."
Muhammad Shafiq Popal is one of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's more formidable opponents yet he isn't a chieftain, a warlord or even a candidate in the Aug. 20 Afghanistan presidential election. Just 30 years old, Popal is a rare individual in the country: a community organizer who heads the Afghanistan Youth National and Social Organization (AYNSO), an NGO that, in a nation marked by division, transcends religion, ethnicity and tribe. AYNSO's broad objective is to promote democracy and human rights. But Popal's current objective is much more specific: mobilizing AYNSO's 32,000 members to unseat Karzai, who he believes has done...
