KABUL (AFP) – Afghanistan's suave and soft-spoken Abdullah Abdullah was axed as foreign minister in 2006 but poses the biggest threat to President Hamid Karzai's bid for re-election on Thursday.

In an energetic election campaign, he swept across the impoverished rural country, drawing large crowds of enthusiastic supporters, some of them kitted out in blue baseball hats and T-shirts -- a so-called ''blue wave.''

A recent poll predicted that Abdullah was the only candidate capable of robbing Karzai of the more than 50 percent he needs for an outright victory, although he may only be able to muster around a quarter of the ballot.

But a good showing at the polls could open a new future for a man who all but faded from the scene after Karzai unceremoniously fired him as foreign minister, a job he had held since the Taliban regime was toppled in 2001.

''It's win-win for him,'' one European observer told AFP. ''He is only 48. If he picks up 40-45 percent, he is a big political figure, he is the future.''

Abdullah, a trained ophthalmologist born in 1960, first gained fame during Afghanistan's decades of war as a spokesman and aide for famous anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, assassinated in 2001.

As foreign minister he was known as a snappy dresser and an eloquent diplomat. Fluent in Dari, Pashtu and English, he also speaks Arabic and French.

After being removed from government, he joined the Massoud Foundation set up to promote development according to the vision of the Soviet and Taliban resistance hero.

Today Abdullah speaks of a ''disconnect'' between Karzai's government and a public alienated by corruption and a Taliban-led insurgency. This has enabled anti-government forces, such as the Taliban, to gain some support, he believes.

Abdullah says the country has been allowed to fall into dire straits despite the many opportunities that arose after the fall of the Taliban when the country was flooded with international aid.

''You see the security is deteriorating, the political situation is chaotic, problems of the people, like economic problems and so on, are not being addressed as people expected,'' he told AFP in a recent interview.

''The main project is to change the situation for better, to create a hope among the people through bringing about political changes as well as presenting new ideas,'' he said.