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Rash of kidnappings hit on eve of Afghan vote

17 September 2010 21:55 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Two candidates were among more than 20 people kidnapped in Afghanistan, officials said on Friday on the eve of a parliamentary election the Taliban has vowed to disrupt, a grim start to the poll despite tightened security, APA reports quoting â€œReutersâ€.
Reports of violence and kidnapping spread from Afghanistan’s west to east, although the capital, Kabul, was relatively quiet as security forces imposed a clampdown.
Noor Mohammad Noor, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission (IEC), said a candidate had been kidnapped in eastern Laghman province. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the abduction.
Qari Safiullah, another candidate in western Herat, had been missing for the past three days along with three campaign workers, Safiullah’s family told Reuters.
Eight IEC officials and 10 campaign workers were kidnapped in northwestern Badghis province.
The rash of abductions came despite security preparations being ramped up across the country before the vote, a key test after a deeply flawed presidential ballot last year, and will likely test the resolve of voters in the face of Taliban threats.
"We should try to do our best under the current circumstances. It is very important that the Afghan people come out and vote," Afghan President Hamid Karzai told reporters.
Almost 300,000 Afghan soldiers and police will guard the poll, backed up by almost 150,000 foreign troops. On Thursday, the hardline Islamist Taliban renewed its threat to attack foreign and Afghan targets and urged voters to stay at home.
Significant security failures would be a major setback, with Washington watching closely before U.S. President Barack Obama conducts a war strategy review in December which will likely examine the pace and scale of U.S. troop withdrawals.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in Washington overnight the current strategy appeared to be working but cautioned it would take months of sustained progress before it could be declared a success.
In northern Kunduz, Afghan and NATO-led troops killed a Taliban commander who was planning election attacks, the coalition said. A mosque to be used as a polling station was hit by rocket fire in Logar, south of Kabul, IEC officials said.
In southern Kandahar province, the focal point of the fight against the Taliban and the birthplace of the hardline Islamists, coalition troops killed another three Taliban insurgents in the Arghandab district, a key area near Kandahar city.
Observers fear security worries could lead to a low voter turnout, as it did last year when the Taliban staged dozens of attacks but failed to disrupt the process entirely.
However, voter turnout was very low in the south and east where Pashtuns, Afghanistan’s main ethnic group, dominate and where the Taliban has its strongest support.
The United Nations’ top diplomat in Afghanistan, Staffan de Mistura, has said a turnout of between 5 million and 7 million out of Afghanistan’s roughly 11.4 million registered voters would be considered a success.
CREDIBILITY
The election is also a test of credibility for Karzai after last year’s poll, which HE won despite a third of his votes being thrown out as fakes.
Since being re-elected, Karzai has promised to root out the endemic corruption that has been a source of great friction with his Western allies.
Washington believes widespread graft weakens the central government and its ability to build up institutions like the Afghan security forces, which in turn determines when Western troops in Afghanistan will be able to leave.
The West has been seeking to temper expectations of the poll. De Mistura said this week the election would not be perfect but it would be an improvement on the "massive fraud" of last year.
Afghanistan’s U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) has warned of a "disputatious" process, with thousands of complaints expected from among the almost 2,500 candidates who fail to win one of the 249 seats in the wolesi jirga, or lower house of parliament.
Last year’s election and the possibility of more widespread fraud have left an underlying cynicism among many voters who feel the system benefits only the political elite.
"Democracy, what’s that?" said Darya Khan, a 40-year-old driver. "I’m not going to vote, the people who get elected are just in it for themselves. They are not working to benefit the country, they are not thinking about the poor."