Kubiš rules out flawless elections

KABUL, the top UN diplomat in the country on Saturday ruled out a flawless presidential vote, scheduled for April 5.

But the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative Ján Kubiš told a news conference in Kabul that the Afghans should not be pessimistic about the presidential provincial elections.

“We want more efforts to be made for holding fair elections in Afghanistan, but we should not expect fraud-free polls because of unstable condition here,” he argued.

Most of the people, government officials and presidential runners hoped the election process would proceed on schedule and any attempt at rigging the ballot would be frustrated, he said.

Kubiš added presidential runners and the government should jointly make efforts for conducting the elections in the best possible. He explained the Afghan government was leading the process.

About the recent killing of election campaign workers in Herat province, he said: “We have already released a statement condemning the incident and hope there would be no recurrence.”

Two campaigners of presidential runner Abdullah Abdullah were gunned down by unidentified motorcyclists in Herat last week and a third in Sar-i-Pul province today.

mds/mud

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