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Afghanistan's president Hamid Karzai shortly after his re-election in November 2009 - Source: Reuters -
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Journalists will be barred from Afghanistan's presidential
palace during the inauguration ceremony on Thursday for Hamid
Karzai, whose credibility has come under question after a
fraud-marred election, the palace said.
"Due to capacity and security reasons we cannot invite the media
into the palace," palace spokesman Siamak Herawi said.
Foreign dignitaries are expected to include senior officials from
Western countries with troops fighting in Afghanistan, although
most have yet to announce publicly who will attend.
The ceremony will be attended by 800 guests, including 300
foreigners, Herawi said. Journalists will be confined to a media
centre at the headquarters of Afghan state television.
Security is always extremely tight for important events in
Kabul.
Last year, Karzai and other senior officials survived an
assassination attempt when gunmen fired rockets at a military
parade in the capital, killing three civilians.
The inauguration comes at a time when the Afghan leader's
reputation in the West is at an all-time low after the August
election, in which an UN-backed probe found nearly a third of his
votes were fake.
There are almost 110,000 Western troops in Afghanistan, two thirds
of them American, and US President Barack Obama is in the final
stages of deciding whether to send tens of thousands more. Death
tolls have never been higher.
Western officials, keen to persuade voters at home that the
eight-year-old mission to defend Karzai's government is worth
fighting, have piled pressure on Karzai to show that he will fight
corruption and improve the performance of his government.
His inauguration speech will be closely watched for signs of
measures that would improve his standing.
This week, Karzai's government announced a new major crimes police
task force, an anti-corruption prosecutors' unit and a special
court for high-profile cases.
On Tuesday, Berlin-based watchdog Transparency International rated
Afghanistan second worst in the world in its annual corruption
perceptions index, behind Somalia.
The election fraud probe determined that Karzai led in the August
20 first round, but not by enough to avoid a run-off.
He was declared the winner when opponent Abdullah Abdullah backed out of the second round.
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