KABUL, 25 August 2005 — Organizers of Afghanistan’s Sept. 18 elections said yesterday preparations were well on track and they promised there would be no nasty surprises with the ink they will use to mark voters’ fingers. Complaints that ink used to mark fingers to prevent cheating in last year’s presidential election could be easily washed off briefly threatened to scupper the process, but the objections were overcome and US-backed Hamid Karzai emerged the winner.
Voters next month will elect a lower house of Parliament and councils in all 34 provinces to oversee development, and select a third of members of an upper house of Parliament. “With just over three weeks left we are well on track for polling,” said Richard Atwood, chief of operations for the joint Afghan-UN election commission.
The elections are the last phase of a plan for Afghanistan’s political development, agreed by Afghan factions and the international community at a conference in Bonn days after the Taleban were forced from power in 2001. About 30,000 US-led and NATO troops are in Afghanistan trying to defeat a Taleban insurgency, and while Afghan and US officials say the vote will not be disrupted, security remains a huge worry.
On Tuesday, the UN Security Council condemned a recent increase in attacks and Jean Arnault, special UN envoy for Afghanistan, said quelling violence remained a distant goal for millions of Afghans. The Taleban threatened to spoil last October’s presidential election but failed.
US, Pakistani and Afghan military officials discussed election security in Pakistan yesterday and reaffirmed a commitment to enduring operations against Al-Qaeda and other militants, Pakistan said. US and Afghan officials have accused Pakistan of not doing enough to stop Taleban crossing into Afghanistan. Pakistan says it is impossible to seal the rugged border.
In the latest violence, five Taleban were killed and two captured in a clash with Afghan and US troops in Uruzgan province, in the south, a provincial official said. Atwood declined to comment on an announcement by a Taleban spokesman this week that the guerrillas would not attack polling stations because of the risk of civilian casualties.
The election commission, known as the Joint Electoral Management Body, faced logistical challenges, Atwood said, but voting material was being distributed, staff were being coordinated and safeguards against fraud put in place. “We are confident that all these measures will preserve the integrity of the vote,” he told a news conference.
Unlike last time when pens were used to mark voters’ fingers and some polling staff used the wrong pens, voters this time will have to dip a finger in a bottle of indelible ink. Tests showed the ink worked and lasted long enough to prevent double voting, Atwood said.
Election posters have been plastered up — and quite a few torn down — on the streets of Kabul, and campaigning is under way by the nearly 6,000 candidates for the Wolesi Jirga (House of the People) lower house and provincial councils.
The voting system is the single non-transferable vote which means candidates stand as individuals. Critics say the system might not produce a truly representative result. The International Crisis Group think-tank calls it a lottery.
Many of the old warlords and commanders blamed for civil war in the 1990s are running, as well as new faces, among them educated professionals, but the voting system makes it impossible to predict who will win.
“It’s very difficult to say what kind of parliament it will be,” said Shukria Barakzai, one of hundreds of women competing.
