KABUL, 26 June 2005 — Afghanistan yesterday launched a monthlong voter registration drive for the country’s first post-conflict parliamentary polls as the UN voiced concerns about escalating violence in the country’s south. The UN-backed Afghan electoral commission aims to register some two million voters by July 21 who were not old enough for October’s presidential elections, have not previously registered, have lost their registration cards, or moved.
“We expect to register one or two million Afghans across the country,” for parliamentary and provincial council elections on Sept. 18, Richard Atwood, chief of operations at the Joint Electoral Management Body told AFP. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s special envoy to Afghanistan, Jean Arnault, said yesterday there had been a “negative evolution” of the nation’s security over the last three months.
US and Afghan troops killed more than 150 militants in a four-day battle in southern Afghanistan this week in one of the deadliest clashes since the fall of the Taleban in 2001, Afghan officials said.
Atwood said that despite security concerns in the south polling was going ahead and violence would not undermine the election for the country’s first post-conflict legislature. “Security is a concern but it will not stop registration, and it will not stop polling, he added.
A number of registration sites in southern Zabul province which was the scene of this week’s lethal battle have not yet opened and one site in the southeastern Taleban hotbed of Paktika has yet to open, Atwood said. However, the rest of the country’s 485 voter registration centers have thrown open their doors, he added.
