Postponed for over 3 years, Afghanistan’s election finally continues

News24xx.com - The campaign period for legislative elections in Afghanistan finally began on Friday, September 28th 2018 after being delayed for three years. Before it was finally decided that the campaign period will be continued, there had been a series of deadly violence and claims about fraud had colored the debate over whether this election would continue or not.

More than 2,500 candidates will take part in the legislative election on October 20. This election is conducted as a trial for next year's presidential election. This election is also a milestone in Afghanistan ahead of UN meeting in Geneva. Because, the country is under pressure to show progress in its "democratic process".

But the preparations for this vote also continued to stir for months. Although the United Nations has taken the lead so that the organizers of the Afghan Election continue to go according to plan. The implementation of the election and the results of a credible calculation are threatened by failure by bureaucratic inefficiency, allegations of industrial scale fraud, and related to the problem of voter biometric verification.

This election can be "very flawed" as a Western diplomat explained to AFP this week. This reflects the pessimism of the entire international community in Kabul. It is this community that provides most of the funds for the election.

Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission insists that the election will continue whether using biometric machines or not. This machine is needed to prevent people from opposition groups to vote more than once.

Officials said that currently only 4,400 biometric identification machines are sent to Afghanistan. Though there are a total of 22,000 German-made machines ordered."They have promised (biometric verification machines) and they might do it, but will it succeed in eliminating fears? I doubt" the Afghan Analyst Network researcher Ali YawarAdili told AFP.

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