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Karzai holds firm on September voting

Afghan President Hamid Karzai answers reporters' questions during a press conference at the Presidential Palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Amir Shah Associated Press
Afghan President Hamid Karzai answers reporters' questions during a press conference at the Presidential Palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

KABUL, Afghanistan – President Hamid Karzai insisted Sunday that violence-threatened national elections would go ahead in September, as the number of Afghans registered to vote passed 4 million.

Fresh from a trip to the United States, Karzai also said he would travel to a June 28-29 summit of NATO leaders in Turkey to press for more foreign troops to protect the vote from violence and keep it free and fair.

“I am 100 percent in favor of having the elections on time,” Karzai told reporters at his Kabul palace. “The process of voter registration shows that we are heading for success.”

The United Nations said Sunday that the number of Afghans signed up for the vote – already delayed from June because of security and logistical problems – had reached 4.04 million.

The total is rising by more than 100,000 a day, putting a U.N.-sponsored registration drive on track for the 6 million mark that Karzai says would be enough.

But the world body, which says there are an estimated 9.5 million eligible voters, has yet to make clear whether it thinks security and political freedoms are solid enough for a vote to be valid.

Electoral teams have come under repeated attack in the south and east, with two British U.N. contractors killed and several Afghans wounded. The teams have yet to enter many remote areas where Taliban-led militants are strongest.

Karzai said he expected the violence to intensify as insurgents try to derail the vote.

The United Nations is also concerned that the warlords whose private armies control much of the country more than two years after the fall of the Taliban could cement their power through intimidation.

With a government pledge to disarm 40,000 militiamen by the end of this month far behind schedule, Karzai chose to emphasize NATO’s unfulfilled promise to expand its peacekeeping mission.

The 6,400-strong International Security Assistance Force is currently confined to Kabul and the northern city of Kunduz. Foot-dragging by NATO nations has hampered plans to fan out across more of the north.

“I will take a message. I will speak clearly” at the NATO summit in Istanbul, Karzai said. “We want the people of Afghanistan to have a chance to elect their own president and parliament without fear, to vote for whoever they want. For this we need a secure atmosphere.”

“You cannot lift the domination of the gun in one day. We cannot end it completely in time for the election,” Karzai said. “It needs time, maybe a long time.”