UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations warned yesterday that election-related violence is on the rise in Afghanistan, where the Taliban have threatened to sabotage next month’s historic transition of power.
The United Nations envoy to Kabul, Jab Kubis, made the remarks in an address to the Security Council, which voted unanimously to extend the mandate of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan by another year.
Millions of Afghans are eligible to vote April 5 to elect a new leader to replace President Hamid Karzai, who took power shortly after US-led troops deposed the Taliban in late year 2001.
Nato ends its combat mission in December following a 13-year war against the Taliban, leaving Western-funded Afghan troops on the frontline against a fierce Islamist insurgency.
“Security will have a major impact on these polls,” Kubis said.
“To date, election-related violence has been of a lower order than 2009 and 2010, even as general security incidents have increased. However it is on the rise,” he added.
Gunmen shot dead two aides of Abdullah Abdullah, one of the front runners, in the western city of Herat in February.
The Taliban last week urged its fighters to attack polling staff, voters and security forces in a bid to sabotage the vote.
The United Nations envoy said he was “gravely disturbed” by the Taliban threat to unleash “a campaign of terror”.
“Targeting civilians or indiscriminate attacks on polling centres and other civilian locations undermine any claims to legitimate political status and is punishable under international law,” Kubis said.
Previous Afghan elections have been marred by violence. Karzai’s re-election in 2009 was engulfed in damaging levels of fraud.
Another blood-stained election would damage claims by Western donors that billions of dollars spent in Afghanistan since 2001 have made progress in establishing a functioning state system.
Kubis said preparations were better than in the past and urged candidates to make a “serious public commitment to opposing fraud committed in their name.”
“Technical preparations... remain on track and of a better quality than previously,” Kubis told the Council.
Kubis urged all eligible Afghans to vote.
“Do not let spoilers and terrorists deprive you of your choice, of your future,” he said.
Afghanistan remains crippled by poverty and violence, with a weak government and fragile economy dependent on Western aid.
Kubis warned that “gains are fragile” but said: “Afghanistan is not poised atop an inevitable post-2014 abyss as some doomsayers have predicted.”
“The success of the April 2014 elections will be of critical significance in reinforcing Afghanistan’s institutional and political stability and instilling confidence in the future.”
Besides Abdullah, who came second in 2009, former foreign minister Zalmai Rassoul and former World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani are the two other principal candidates.
Though Afghanistan has had democratic elections throughout the 20th century, the election institutions have varied as changes in regimes have disrupted political continuity. AFP
