Afghanistan: voters at polls in presidential elections
(Vatican Radio) Voters in Afghanistan were at the polls on Saturday, to choose a successor
to outgoing President Hamid Karzai and elect certain provincial officials. Security
was tight at polling stations in the capital, Kabul, and throughout the country, with
as many as 400 thousand soldiers & police on duty to ensure the safety of ballot-casters
and election station workers. Speaking ahead of the polls’ opening, the UN Secretary General’s Deputy Special Representative in Afghanistan Nicholas Haysom, explained that Afghan authorities would be responsible for the conduct and supervision of the voting process. “It was never contemplated that international observers would play a significant role in observation,” he said, adding, “in fact, observation rests entirely on domestic observers.”
If none of the eight presidential candidates takes more than half the vote in this first round, the two frontrunners would face each other in a run-off tentatively scheduled for this coming May 28th.
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