UN plans massive voter registration campaign in May

Pushing her way through a crowd of all-enveloping burqa covered women, Freshta Doust, a 23-year-old married university student became the one millionth Afghan voter to register in the UN-supervised voter registration drive for the country's first democratic nationwide elections set for June. "I'm really happy to be the one millionth [registered voter], but unfortunately we are a long way away from registering the ten million eligible voters out there, thereby allowing me to actually vote," she told IRIN excitedly on Wednesday in the Afghan capital, Kabul. And with just a million Afghans registered since the process began on 1 December 2003, the young mother-of-one is right. In accordance with the Bonn agreement of December 2001, at least 70 percent of the UN-estimated 10.5 million eligible voters (18 or older by 20 June 2004) in the country need to be registered in three phases through the joint UN-Afghan government initiative. But the UN has acknowledged this challenge and following Doust's registration the world body announced an ambitious effort to expand the current fewer than 100 registration sites to thousands, an effort requiring an army of tens of thousands of workers to be deployed across the Central Asian nation. "We put our efforts within the marks of the Bonn timetable and we hope that by deploying 4,200 polling stations with 33,000 people [workers], we will be collectively able to meet that date," Jean Arnult, the newly assigned UN special representative to Afghanistan told IRIN. And while no political parties have been officially recognised, no electoral law enacted, and security problems continuing to limit the registration process to major provincial capitals, logistical problems have fueled widespread concern that voting scheduled for late June might have to be seriously delayed. According to the UN, the registration teams would continue to remain in the current eight regional cities where 2.5 million voters are expected to be registered until early May when a 25-day massive registration campaign would be launched throughout the country, aiming to register the remaining eight million voters in less than a month's time. "We feel fairly confident that if in the next six weeks the work is properly done, Afghans will indeed be able to register in a relatively easy and comprehensive way," Arnult ascertained.

Women lining up to register in Kabul

Despite alarming challenges, mainly lack of security in the southern and eastern parts of the country, both Afghan and US officials have optimistically insisted that elections could be held by June or July. While acknowledging that serious problems existed, they said 'a new revised operational plan' was being formed to allow the Bonn-mandated elections go ahead as scheduled. "We recognise there is a major logistical challenge but our position is still that the elections will take place as planned," Jawid Luddin, a spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai said. "We do not want to compromise the legitimacy of the elections, and that depends on how many people register. We are still working toward June, and hopefully we will make it." Meanwhile, the Bush administration pledged Wednesday to help Afghanistan hold presidential elections in June despite warnings that security in lawless regions must be improved first. State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher said: "We will do everything in our power to have the elections, as promised, in June." But despite promising developments in the election preparations, a top Taliban commander has issued a chilling warning, noting that Afghans who took part in elections this year would face reprisals, the first direct threat the guerrillas have issued to the United Nations-backed polls. "The people of Afghanistan must not participate in the election," Mullah Dadullah, a top Taliban man said after contacting Reuters from an undisclosed location. "If they do, they will come under Taliban attack."