Word: afghanistanism
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Weighing a Plan in Afghanistan...
...statement e-mailed to Reuters, the Taliban threatened to attack polling stations and close roads on the day of voting, saying the election process was at Washington's behest. "The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan once again urges their respected countrymen not to participate," the message said. "In order to make this process fail, all the [mujahedins] will carry out operations on the enemy's centers." (See up-close pictures of the war in Afghanistan...
...help of the U.N. and, in some cases, donkeys and camels, began spreading throughout the country with a fresh batch of ballot papers, tamper-proof boxes and indelible ink to be delivered to far-flung polling stations. This time, however, the task won't be quite so arduous. Afghanistan's election commission has decided to cut the number of polling stations by about 2,000 out of 25,000 in an attempt to mitigate some of the fraudulent methods practiced in the first round, when stations that never opened due to security fears nevertheless reported votes. The bulk of those...
Election observers have asked for more such stations to be closed, citing fears of continued abuses, but they also recognize the need to balance rural areas' right to vote with the risk of fraud. Haroun Mir, director of Afghanistan's Center for Research and Policy Studies, says such an approach risks alienating the very people whom a new President needs most to ensure his legitimacy. "If the Independent Election Commission doesn't open sites where the Taliban is strong, they are telling the Pashtuns in the south that your vote doesn't count," he says...
Most Afghans, however, say the efforts at fraud prevention will be worthless if people don't turn out to vote. Safora el-Khani, a Member of Parliament from Bamiyan, the mountainous center of Afghanistan, points out that for many parts of her district, which is largely inhabited by a minority ethnic group, it is already too late. Winter arrives early in the mountains of Afghanistan, and heavy snowfall will make it impossible for voters to get to the polls or for ballots to make it back to Kabul for tabulation. "We will not have access to some polling stations...