Afghans vote in chaos, corruption and Taliban threats

KABUL (Reuters) – Afghans began voting in the parliamentary elections Saturday, eclipsed by a chaotic organization, accusations of corruption and violence that forced the postponement of the vote in the strategic province of Kandahar, southern Sudan. country.

United Nations , who support the process, urged Afghans to "seize this opportunity to exercise their constitutional right to vote" and called for elections to be held in a safe and secure environment.

Officials fear that violence will prevent voters from going to polling stations, especially after the badbadination of Kandahar police chief on Thursday, which forced the authorities to postpone the elections in the province of one week.

Taliban militants have issued a series of statements banning citizens from taking part in what they consider to be a foreign-imposed process, and warning that electoral centers could be attacked.

Thousands of police and soldiers have been deployed throughout the country, but nine candidates have already been murdered and hundreds of people killed and injured during election-related attacks.

polling stations opened at 7:00 (02:30 GMT) and voting must continue until 16:00 Due to the difficulty in collecting and collecting the results in Afghanistan, the overall results will not be known until at least two weeks later .

The electoral authorities had originally scheduled 7,355 polling stations, but only 5,100 of them will be able to open for security reasons, according to the independent electoral commission that oversees the vote.

Elections were also delayed in Ghazni province because of arguments regarding the representation of different ethnic groups.

Fear of Fraud

Alleged allegations of electoral fraud pose a challenge to the legitimacy of the process, viewed by Afghanistan's international partners as a key step ahead of next year's most important presidential election .

Afghan policy is still poisoned by the aftermath of a controversial presidential vote in 2014, which forced the two major rival groups to form an unstable partnership. Both parties have been accused of mbadive electoral fraud.

The political situation has placed Afghanistan at the bottom of the global corruption index of Transparency International.

"Fraud, abuse of power and corruption will be the biggest challenge, more than security," said Aziz Rafiee, political badyst and executive director of the Afghan Civil Society Forum.

About 8.8 million voters have been registered, but an unknown number, according to some estimates, could reach 50% or more, reportedly being fraudulently or erroneously recorded.

About 2,450 candidates vie for seats in the Lower House, which has 250 seats, including one reserved for a Sikh minority candidate. Under the constitution, parliament examines and ratifies laws but has little real power.

In order to ensure that voting is fair, biometric voter registration technology was introduced at the last minute.

But many fear that the untested technology, which was still distributed to provincial polling centers last Thursday, will add to the confusion without eliminating fraud.