Afghanistan sets election date

Afghanistan’s much delayed presidential election will take place on October 9, its top electoral official said today, but a parliamentary vote originally scheduled to be held simultaneously was put off until the spring.

The vote is seen as a referendum on the rebuilding of the war-ravaged nation, and a test of the ability of Afghan and international forces to keep the peace. It will be the first direct election for president in the country’s history.

Zakim Shah, head of the joint Afghan-UN electoral commission, announced on state television that the body “decided to hold the presidential election on Mizan 18” – a date in Afghanistan’s calendar that corresponds to October 9.

He said the parliamentary vote would likely be in April or May, and appealed to Afghan authorities and the international community to do more to improve security “to create a more secure atmosphere for the candidates and the voters”.

US-backed interim President Hamid Karzai is expected to win the vote for the top job, but he faces at least a half-dozen rivals in the ethnically and regionally fractured country. It is not clear whether he will garner the 50% majority needed for outright victory, meaning a run-off two weeks later may be necessary.

The elections are meant to crown a faltering UN-sponsored drive to stabilise Afghanistan, begun at a conference in Bonn, Germany after the Taliban’s ouster in late 2001.

International peacekeepers have brought relative calm to the capital, which like many Afghan cities is enjoying a boom. Millions of Afghan refugees have returned home, and a debilitating drought has eased.

But persistent violence still starves much of the south of desperately needed reconstruction, and the elections remain threatened by the warlords who hold de facto power beyond Kabul.