Afghan parliamentary polls to be held on September 18

Afghanistan's long-delayed parliamentary elections will be held September 18, election officials said, but district council polls will be pushed back until 2006, highlighting the massive challenges ahead on the war-torn country's road to democracy. "The Joint Electoral Management Body is pleased to announce that elections for the Wolesi Jirga and provincial councils will be held on Sunday, September 18, 2005," head of Afghanistan's electoral commission Bismillah Bismil told reporters at a press conference in Kabul.
The parliamentary vote was originally scheduled for June 2004 alongside Afghanistan's first presidential election.
Both ballots were delayed because of security and logistical problems before President Hamid Karzai was finally elected with a landslide on October 9
Some 10.5 million voters will be able to elect the 249-seat parliament, or Wolesi Jirga, and provincial councils on September 18 and more will have a chance to add their names to electoral rolls in coming months, Bismil said. District council elections will be further delayed due to "technical reasons", he added.
Bismil said there were arguments over how to draw up boundaries for at least 40 districts and said the logistics of holding simultaneous elections for the parliament and provincial councils were already a big enough challenge. He did not give a date for district council polls but said they could not be held after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan which begins in early October and the onset of winter when many areas of Afghanistan are cut off by heavy snows. Holding the first two elections in September is a compromise which will give President Karzai legitimacy for his government.
US-backed Karzai, who was installed as transitional leader after US-led forces overthrew the Taleban in late 2001, will need the approval of the new parliament for his cabinet to keep their jobs.
The delay in the district polls would mean it would not be possible to create a full-sized upper house, or Senate, since district councils are supposed to send representatives to the chamber. Afghanistan will create a stop-gap Senate of 51 members with 34 members drawn from elected provincial councils and 17 appointed by Karzai, instead of the 102 member upper house originally slated by the Afghan constitution.
"There were conflicting views among those we consulted. Some of them were suggesting an early date for the elections, while others were calling for its postponement to a much later date," Bismil said.
Bismil said that many political parties were worried about the number of guns in the hands of private militias which would need to be disarmed ahead of parliamentary polls.