Afghanistan Times
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By Farhad Naibkhel-KABUL: Afghanistan’s election commission declared on Sunday the process of registering voters for parliamentary and provincial councils elections was set to be launched on April 14th.
In compliance with the assurance from the independent election commission to run elections this year, we are planning to embark on voter registration next, said the commission’s chief Abdul Badi Sayyad. A sum of $30 million has been earmarked for the voter registration; 90 percent of which is donor-funded and 10 percent government-funded. And 12,000 staff have been employed to undertake the process, he said.
The election commission will remain to be committed to a free, fair and transparent parliamentary elections, he said, urging a robust public support for ensuring transparency. “Nothing will deter our will to hold parliamentary and provincial councils elections this year. We will try to our outmost to run a free and fair elections to the acceptance of Afghans and the world. However, all people need to back IEC up.”
Sayyad called on security forces to prepare for beefing up security ahead of the upcoming elections. He also said that the commission has obtained voter registration manuals and will soon dispatch them to all constituencies across all districts.
To avoid vote rigging and fraud, voters will be registered with their national identity cards and will have the chance to vote only in the center they were registered, he said. Due to a record vote-rigging which marred the 2014 presidential elections coupled with a few other technical challenges, the parliamentary and provincial council elections had been delayed for three consecutive years. However, the election commission last year declared that parliamentary elections would be held in July this year.
