Afghanistan kicks off voter registration

KABUL: Afghanistan kicked off the first phase of its voter registration drive on Saturday for its long-delayed parliamentary and provincial council elections, expected to take place in October.

Voters in provincial capitals can register at 7,364 registration centres, Gulajan Abdul Badi Sayyad, chairman of the Independent Election Commission (IEC), told reporters.

There are no official numbers on how many of Afghanistan’s 30-million-strong population are eligible to register, however all voters have been asked to register again and will receive new voting IDS.

The first phase of the registration will continue for nearly a month before a second phase begins which will cover district centres and towns, according to Sayyad.

Parliamentary and provincial council elections — originally slated for July — have been pushed back to October 20, the IEC said at the beginning of April.

An election monitor last month said that more than 40 per cent of polling stations would be affected by security risks, which could significantly affect turnout.

Mohammad Yousuf Rashed, the executive director of the Free and Fair Election Forum of Afghanistan (FEFA), said that of 7,400 polling stations due to be set up for parliamentary elections, 948 were in areas “out of government control.”

This also poses a problem for the country’s next presidential election, which is planned for April 2019, Yousuf Rashed warned.

Parliamentary elections should have been held in 2015.

However, they were postponed in the aftermath of badly flawed presidential elections in 2014, rising security threats and unresolved disputes about election reforms.