It is a presidential election at high risk and under strong police and military protections. Afghans began voting on Saturday (September 28th) to choose their president, a vote that is taking place under the triple threat of Taliban attacks, fraud and voter abstention.
The Interior Ministry has announced the deployment of 72,000 men to guard the nearly 5,000 polling stations of the country, which opened at 07:00 (02:30 GMT) and should close at 15:00. It has also banned since Wednesday evening access to the capital to all trucks and vans, for fear of bombings car bombs. "We are happy that people are already forming big queues in front of the polls waiting to put their ballots in the ballot box," said Zabi Sadaat, spokesperson for the electoral commission, in the morning.
The election is taking place as talks between the Americans and the Taliban are stalled, making the prospect of an inter-Afghan dialogue (between the government and the insurgents) as far away as possible for peace.
Taliban warnings
The Taliban has increased warnings to some 9.6 million voters to dissuade them from voting. They said Thursday that their mujahideen will target "offices and (voting) centers hosting this show". "All acts of violence against the electoral process ... are unacceptable," warned Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general.
The campaign began in late July with an attack that killed 20 people. More than 100 other people have been victims of attacks claimed by the Taliban since. Added to this is the risk that the Islamic State group is involved in the party, he who claimed an attack on a marriage that killed 80 in August.
An elector in Kabul's Taimanai district told AFP: "I'm here to vote, I know there are threats, but bombs and attacks are part of our daily life." When asked by phone, 55-year-old Mohuiuddin added, "I'm not afraid, we have to vote if we want to be able to change our lives."
Fourth presidential
This is the fourth presidential election in the history of the country, the first held in 2004. The vote brings together 18 candidates for a five-year term, and opposes mostly two favorites, the current head of state Ashraf Ghani and his chief executive Abdullah Abdullah. They were already clashing in 2014, in an election marked by such serious irregularities that the United States had imposed through their mediation the creation of the post of Abdullah Abdullah, deemed to have come second.
The United States expects that "the conduct of the candidates and institutions in charge of the election is blameless, to ensure the legitimacy of its outcome," said the head of the American diplomacy Mike Pompeo in a conversation with Ashraf Ghani Thursday.
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The Afghan authorities have assured that they have taken all measures to prevent fraud, including the deployment of a battery of technical means, including biometric readers. Preliminary results are expected on October 19th and final on November 7th.
The first unknown is the extent of abstention. If it is not fear of attacks or fraud that keeps them out of the polls, many voters should stay home, having lost hope that their elites improve their living conditions. The future head of state will head a country at war, where 55 percent of the population lived on less than two dollars a day in 2017, and where the conflict with the insurgents killed more than 1,300 civilians in the first semester 2019, according to the UN.
With AFP