Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission on Wednesday defended its decision to set August 20 as the date for the next presidential election, rejecting President Hamid Karzai's decree for early polls in April as simply too soon for the country to prepare for.
Karzai last week ordered the commission to move the polling up to comply with the constitution, sparking an outcry from politicians who said they were not ready for an earlier election date. Karzai's move was rejected by his government's backers - including the United States, Nato military alliance and the United Nations - who argued that an election next month was not possible because of poor weather and security and logistical problems.
"The climate, security, budgetary and operational challenges have not yet been solved," Azizullah Ludin, the head of the Independent Election Commission, told reporters in Kabul.
The commission "is preparing to conduct transparent, fair, secret and general elections, which will be acceptable to the people of Afghanistan and the international community and legitimise the system, based on the previous decision," Ludin said. The Wednesday' decision was welcomed both by Karzai opponents, as well as the international community, including Nato and UN, which have kept relatively quiet in order not to be seen as overly interfering in Afghan domestic politics.