Ghazni, Afghanistan ? Watched over by American bodyguards and sharpshooters, Afghanistan’s eternally optimistic interim president told a campaign rally of 10,000 people Tuesday that this weekend’s election is a key step in their recovery from decades of war and hardship.

The gathering was one of three big rallies by leading presidential contenders on the most active day yet in a campaign that has mostly been waged behind closed doors, with the candidates courting the support of tribal elders who can influence how whole villages vote.

It was only President Hamid Karzai’s second campaign trip out of the capital since an assassination attempt by Taliban rebels last month, and security was tight. Truckloads of Afghan police lined the road leading to the dusty field, and everyone attending the rally had to pass through security checkpoints as U.S. helicopters flew overhead.

Karzai, the overwhelming favorite among the 18 contenders, said Saturday’s election was an opportunity to build a new future for a country that has known nothing but war, drought and poverty for a quarter century.

“Brothers and sisters of Afghanistan, I ask you to vote for me freely, with no pressure,” Karzai told the crowd in Ghazni, about 75 miles south of Kabul. “We want a proud Afghanistan, a stable Afghanistan, a peaceful Afghanistan.”

Karzai’s main rival, former Interior Minister Yunus Qanooni, addressed more than 2,000 people at the Kabul sports stadium. Qanooni, an ethnic Tajik, is expected to finish second but hopes to hold Karzai below the majority vote needed to avoid a runoff.

In the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, Uzbek strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum told several thousand people that Karzai’s government had fallen short on promises of reconstruction and improved security.

In the conservative south, about 500 leaders of Karzai’s ethnic Pashtun kinsmen joined one of Karzai’s brothers at a tribal council in a village near Kandahar to endorse the interim leader. Speakers lauded Karzai as the only man to stop infighting among Afghan warlords, keep Taliban rebels at bay and maintain the world’s interest in helping the country.

“He doesn’t smoke and nobody ever heard him use bad language,” said Maulawi Obeidullah, a white-bearded cleric. “He’s a Muslim, a holy warrior and a great Afghan.”

Supporters of Afghan presidential candidate Yunus Qanooni hold up his posters during a campaign stop at the Kabul Stadium. Afghans will hold their first-ever direct presidential election Saturday.