3 militants killed in Kabul 1 day before election

Slides
Photos

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-08-19 16:46

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that the rise in insurgent violence in Afghanistan reflected a deliberate campaign to intimidate voters. A shopkeeper near Wednesday's gunfire attack in Kabul, Abdul Jalal, said that if violence persisted into Thursday, he and his wife would not vote.

"Tomorrow we plan to go the polling center," said Jalal. "But if it was like today, we will not vote. Elections are a good thing for Afghanistan, but security is more important."

Attacks nationwide have increased in recent days from a daily average of about 32 to 48, said Brig. Gen. E. Tremblay, the spokesman for the NATO-led force. Even with the increase, Tremblay said that insurgents do not have the ability to widely disrupt voting at the country's 6,500 or so polling sites.

Related full coverage: Afghan Presidential Election 2009
Related readings: Afghan ambassador calls for closer cooperation with China NATO to keep guns quiet on Afghan election day Key facts and figures about Afghan election Ex-Afghan warlord returns home ahead of election Possible outcomes of Afghan election

"When you're looking purely at statistics ... they're not going to be able to attack even 1 percent of the entire polling sites in this country," he said on Tuesday.

UN Secretery-General Ban Ki-moon encouraged all Afghans to vote and said that by participating in the election Afghans will help "bring fresh vigor to the country's political life, and ultimately reaffirm their commitment to contribute to the peace and prosperity of their nation."

The next president will face challenges on several fronts: the rising Taliban insurgency, internal political divisions, ethnic tensions, unemployment, the country's drug trade and corruption.

Karzai is favored to win, but if he does not get more than 50 percent of Thursday's vote he and the second-place finisher will face off in an October run-off. Polls show Abdullah in second place with around 25 percent support and Karzai's support around 45 percent.

Fearing that violence may dampen turnout, the Foreign Ministry issued a statement Tuesday asking news organizations to avoid "broadcasting any incidence of violence" between 6 am and 8 pm on election day "to ensure the wide participation of the Afghan people." The statement did not spell out any penalties for those who do not comply.

The English version said media "are requested" to follow the guidelines. The version in the Afghan language Dari said broadcasting news or video from a "terrorist attack" was "strictly forbidden."

It was unclear how the government intended to enforce the ban. Rachel Reid, the Afghanistan researcher for Human Rights Watch, said freedom of expression was enshrined in the Afghan Constitution and that any attempt to censor the reporting would be "an unreasonable violation of press freedoms."

"Afghans have a right to know about the security threats that they face, and make their own assessments about security," Reid said.

Previous page 1 2 Next Page