Kabul, August 16: Thousands of donkeys and horses will trek into Afghanistan’s rugged mountains this week, hauling materials for an election that is a logistical nightmare in a country of conflict and tough terrain.
Helicopters have also been drafted in to deliver ballot papers, tonnes of stationery and other items for the August 20 presidential and provincial council elections, authorities say.
The poll is the first organised by Afghans in a largely rural country of steep mountains and vast deserts after previous post-Taliban elections were run by the United Nations.
Security is another challenge, with large swathes of the country at risk from attacks by the Taliban who have said they would block all roads ahead of polling day to stop Afghans from casting their ballots.
Highlighting the threat, a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle in front of NATO headquarters in the capital’s most secured area Saturday, killing seven people and wounding nearly 100, including foreign soldiers.
“There are places where we cannot go by car. So we have to use donkeys and horses to deliver those materials to the polling stations,” Independent Election Commission spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor told AFP.
“Where we cannot go due to security challenges, or a Taliban presence, we are using helicopters to deliver ballot papers and other materials,” he said.
“It is a challenge but we have got to do it.”
The materials for about 17 million registered voters have been delivered to the capitals of the country’s 34 provinces.
In the days before the vote, they will be shipped out to equip between 6,200 and nearly 7,000 polling stations — a number that officials say will only be finalised after security risks are assessed.
Three helicopters, 3,000 cars and about 3,000 donkeys, horses and mules will deliver the millions of ballot papers, tonnes of stationery, and other items, vote authorities say.
Officials have said there are between seven and nine districts where voting would not take place because of the presence of insurgents.
“It’s very unlikely we will conduct elections in those districts,” said a military official, asking for anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to media.
Most of the districts are in the country’s south where the rebels are most active, the official said.
The security threats and rugged terrain also mean challenges for monitoring the poll, a dimension that has become more urgent amid claims of vote-buying and plans for ballot stuffing.
“Two things can happen when you can’t reach remote places or places where the security is not good,” said Waheed Mujda an analyst and writer.
“You’ll have either people deprived of voting, or fraud in the vote. When there’s no one to observe, anything can happen, like stuffing the ballot boxes,” he told AFP.
Around 200,000 observers — from media to international monitors — are expected to watch over the elections.
The vote, the second-ever presidential poll in the bloody history of this Central Asian nation, is to cost around 223 million dollars, nearly all of it coming from international donors.
“Afghanistan is a landlocked county that is recovering from nearly three decades of war,” said Aleem Siddique, a spokesman for the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan, which supports the poll organisers.
“Distributing sensitive election materials is a real challenge in such an environment,” the spokesman told AFP.
“We have not only the challenge of getting to rural communities but also raising awareness amongst a vastly illiterate population about the importance of elections and how the electoral process works,” he said.
More than 70 percent of the Afghan population is illiterate and for many, voting is a new experience.
“We have the logistics challenge which is a huge complicating matter, we have civic education…. but what we have seen is the Afghan authorities step up to meet some of the challenges,” Siddique said.
–Agencies