Afghan vote will be delayed
The four-month action was taken to give new U.S. troops more time to secure violent areas.
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan will postpone its presidential election until Aug. 20, four months later than the constitution specifies, to give incoming U.S. forces more time to stabilize the country's most violent regions, the national election commission said yesterday.
Opposition lawmakers decried the delay and said they would not recognize Hamid Karzai as president after May 22 - his last day in office, according to the constitution. Parliament is set to debate the issue tomorrow in a potentially contentious session that could signal whether a constitutional crisis looms.
"If Karzai is in office after May 22, that will be illegal," said Sayyid Agha Hussain Fazel Sancharaki, spokesman for the National Front, a group of opposition lawmakers. "Nobody is allowed to change the constitution."
The constitution says the election should be held 30 to 60 days before May 22. But Azizullah Lodin, head of the Independent Election Commission, said the security situation was not good enough for a vote to occur so soon.
The country continues to be plagued by extremist attacks and suicide bombers since a U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban's hard-line Islamist regime from power in 2001. The Taliban insurgency has strengthened in recent years, gaining more control over southern regions, and last year was the deadliest for U.S. troops since the invasion.
The August election date is meant to be a compromise between the president's office - which wanted the vote delayed until fall - and parliament, which has said elections must occur in the spring, Lodin said.
Karzai has told the Associated Press he plans to run for a second five-year term. Several other Afghan politicians have said they will also run, but none of the candidates who have declared so far is expected to present Karzai with a strong challenge.
Lodin said the commission agreed to wait for additional international forces expected to arrive in the coming months. U.S. military leaders have said that up to 30,000 new American forces could be sent to Afghanistan in 2009, augmenting the 32,000 now in the country. Thousands of the troops are being sent to the south, Afghanistan's most violent region.
In addition, 2,500 Afghan army soldiers are being trained each month, meaning more soldiers would be available to help protect an August vote. "Without security, there can be no election," Lodin said.
He said the delay was allowed under an article in the election law that addresses a lack of security or logistical preparations for a peaceful vote. Even if security were not an issue, financial and technical barriers prevent the vote in the spring, Lodin said.
It would be nearly impossible to distribute ballots in Afghanistan's mountainous regions during winter and early spring because of the extreme weather, he said. And the electoral commission is still far short of the $223 million required to hold the presidential and provincial council votes.
Karzai's spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, said the Aug. 20 election date would mean more people could vote.
Hamidzada told the Associated Press that efforts to register people in Helmand and Kandahar provinces were not going well because of security problems. "An election without participation of those provinces would be illegitimate," Hamidzada said.
Holbrooke Set To Visit Region
Richard Holbrooke,
President Obama's envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, will consult with leaders in the region next week
on his first visit since
his appointment, the State Department
said yesterday.
"He wants to go
and touch base with various leaders in the region, and also to hear what they have to say in terms of what needs to be done to improve the situation," department spokesman Robert Wood said.
Holbrooke is
charged with coordinating U.S. efforts to neutralize
the terrorism threat emanating from al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists taking refuge in the Afghan-Pakistan border region.
- Bloomberg News
