KABUL, 18 August 2005 — Campaigning began yesterday for Afghanistan’s first parliamentary polls since the fall of the Taleban in 2001, as a rights group warned that female candidates need more protection. The election is the war-shattered country’s next big step toward democracy but organizers face the threat of violence by Islamic militants, intimidation by warlords and major logistical problems.
Authorities launched a month of official campaigning featuring sponsored radio or television slots for each of the nearly 6,000 candidates standing for the lower house of the national assembly or for local councils. The campaign will continue until Sept. 15, three days ahead of polls on Sept. 18.
“This facility will enable candidates to produce and broadcast campaign advertisements on radio and television free of charge, courtesy of donors, for an equal amount of airtime,” Bissmillah Bissmil, chairman of the Joint Electoral Management Body, said in a statement. The polls have already been pushed back twice from last year, and the United Nations has said it could be the most challenging one the international community has ever organized.
The fairness of the vote will be jeopardized if Afghan and international authorities do not do more to shield the nearly 600 female candidates, Human Rights Watch said in a report released yesterday. “As campaigning begins for the Sept. 18 polls for Parliament and provincial councils, the Afghan government and international monitors must take special measures to protect women from attacks and intimidation by the Taleban and regional warlords,” the New York-based group said.
A pervasive atmosphere of fear persists for women involved in politics and women’s rights in Afghanistan, despite significant improvements since US-led forces toppled the Taleban, the group said. “Women candidates in Afghanistan are courageously defying the Taleban, warlords and conservative social norms that exclude them from public life,” said Nisha Varia, Asia researcher in the group’s women’s rights division.
Under Afghan law, a quarter of seats in the lower house of Parliament and the provincial councils are reserved for women. The seats will remain empty if there are not enough women to fill them. Females make up around 12 percent, or 328 out of 2,707, of the candidates for parliament’s lower house. But only eight percent of people standing for provincial councils are women — 247 out of a total 3,025.
