90% of Afghans are registered to vote for Oct. 9 election!
Nine out of 10 eligible Afghans have signed up for landmark October elections, the United Nations said Sunday, a resounding endorsement of a democratic experiment supposed to help Afghanistan turn its back on years of debilitating war.
Women and ethnic minorities are strongly represented among those registered for the first-ever direct vote for president. But parts of the south risk being left behind because of stepped-up attacks on election workers and Afghan and U.S. security forces.
First tallies since the eight-month registration drive began winding down on Saturday show that 8.7 million of an estimated 9.8 million eligible voters have collected ID cards for the Oct. 9 election. Forty-one percent of those registered were women.
[Go, Afghan sisters!--Jen]
"The participation is amazing," U.N. spokesman David Singh said. "There was a lot of skepticism about this process at the beginning, but the targets have been fulfilled."
The turnout is a relief for the world body, which has overcome misgivings about Afghanistan's readiness for elections under strong pressure from the United States. The vote had been delayed from June because of slow progress disarming warlords' private armies. A vote for Parliament was put off until next spring.
It is also a boost for President Hamid Karzai, who is widely expected to defeat 22 rivals to secure a new five-year term. The U.S.-backed interim leader was still saying in June that 6 million registered voters would be enough.
We are overwhelmed with joy at the sheer enthusiasm of the people," presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin said. "It's essentially the first important step toward a successful and legitimate election process."
Afghans have flocked to register in the north, west and center of the country, where regional leaders - including opponents of Karzai's drive for a centralized state - have encouraged their supporters to sign up. Ethnic rivalry in a country deeply scarred by years of infighting has also encouraged communities to make sure they are fully represented.
[...]
Shootings and explosions have killed at least nine election workers since May, including a worker and a would-be voter killed Wednesday by a bomb in a mosque used as registration center in Ghazni province. Afghan officials said a mine seriously injured three election workers in Uruzgan on Friday.
The American military says it has killed than 100 militants in the region since mid-May, opening the way for registration teams.
Maj. Jon Siepmann, an American spokesman, said attacks against civilians were likely to continue as part of militants' "increasingly desperate strategy" to disrupt a poll they dismiss as an American-orchestrated charade.
He insisted overall security was steadily improving.
No matter that the Dims didn't mention the liberation of Afghanistan at DonkeyCon; we did a terrific thing when we liberated these people from the Taliban!
The Afghans are hungry for Freedom and Justice to prevail in their country which they love so much and their enthusiasm to sign up to participate shows this.
Karzai has done a marvelous job, also, as interim President and is widely loved and respected.
I'm looking forward to him being returned for a "real" 5-year term in October.
(And I envy the Afghans that they don't have Dumbocrats in their country with a complicit media that bombards you with their propaganda 24/7 as we do here in the more "enlightened" "Great Satan!")
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