KABUL, 2 July 2004 — Historic Afghan elections scheduled for September will be delayed because of wrangling among officials and political parties, a senior government official told reporters yesterday.
Farooq Wardak, a senior member of the country’s election management body, said the group wouldn’t be able to reach a decision by Friday, the deadline for setting a vote in September.
Under Afghan law, the election day must be set at least 90 days in advance. That makes Friday the last chance to announce a Sept. 30 election.
“Much more consultation is required,” Wardak said by telephone as he hurried to a meeting with the top UN official in Afghanistan, Jean Arnault. “I’m hopeful that next week we’ll have a decision.”
President Hamid Karzai has pledged repeatedly to hold the elections in September, despite mounting violence against election workers and concern that warlords will use intimidation to cement their power.
Presidential and parliamentary elections were already delayed from June, and October is seen as the last chance to hold a vote before snow closes high passes in the Hindu Kush until the spring of 2005.
Wardak said the government census office had yet to deliver vital population estimates so that the distribution of seats in Parliament can be decided.
He also said only four of the 20 political parties consulted by the election body insist on the parliamentary vote being held this fall.
The votes are supposed to be held simultaneously, but observers say there is a possibility that officials could separate them, holding the presidential vote in October and the parliamentary election next year.
Karzai has argued that blocking the formation of Parliament would betray Afghans’ hopes, some three years after the ouster of the Taleban regime and more than two decades after the nation was plunged into a series of ruinous wars.
Political wrangling isn’t the only thing standing in the way of a vote. International officials have been cautioning for months that security simply isn’t adequate to hold the elections.
The UN, which holds half the seats on the election body, has warned repeatedly that warlords and faction leaders — some in government — must disarm their private armies to keep the vote credible.
“There is indeed a debate,” UN spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said. “Of course, if the debate goes on, that will have an impact on the election date.”
News of the latest delay follows several weeks of attacks targeting election workers and ordinary voters. Two female election voters and more than a dozen Afghans who had registered were killed last week.
Analysts doubt whether the vote itself can be any better protected, even though thousands of foreign troops and newly trained Afghan security forces are being marshaled to shield polling stations.
That hasn’t deterred Afghans from registering to vote, with 5.5 million of the estimated 9.5 million eligible Afghans already signed up, including two million women.
The fear is that many will vote along lines dictated by local strongmen and wealthy drug barons, blunting the hopes of independent candidates.
In March, Karzai used a promise to disarm 40,000 irregular fighters by the end of June to win international pledges of billions in aid to rebuild war-ravaged Afghanistan. But only 9,700 soldiers have given up their guns so far.
Almeida e Silva said UN officials “continue to attach the highest priority to DDR,” which stands for disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of former soldiers.
