KABUL: Afghanistan will hold its third presidential and provincial council elections since the fall of the Taliban on Saturday amid tight security.
The incumbent President Hamid Karzai, who has ruled the country since the Taliban’s overthrow in 2001, is constitutionally barred from seeking another term in office.
For presidential elections, eight candidates are in the run which included among others former foreign ministers Abdullah Abdullah and Zalmay Rassoul and former finance minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai.
A candidate must secure more than 50 percent of valid ballots to win. However, if no presidential candidate receives 50 percent of the votes, the two top candidates must face off in a run-off election in late May.
In order to maintain law and order during the elections, 352,000 security personnel have been deployed as the Afghan Taliban have vowed a campaign of violence to disrupt the polls, urging their fighters to attack polling staff, voters and security forces in the run-up to election day.
Meanwhile, in a statement the special representative of the UN Secretary General for Afghanistan Jan Kubis said that Afghanistan is in a better position for holding presidential election on April 5 as compared to the elections in 2009.
Kubis said that the Afghan people will determine their future through these elections. He urged Afghans not to let anyone to deprive them of the chance and their right to vote.
