The election commission has rejected Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s request to move up the presidential elections to the spring, saying the country won’t be safe enough or have enough money by then to hold a vote.
The commission’s decision came on Wednesday as a car bomb exploded outside the main US base in Bagram, underscoring the shaky security situation the country faces as a resurgent Taliban militia increases its attacks.
The president had asked the commission to move the elections from Aug. 20 to the spring, but the commission said it could not because of bad spring weather, lack of funds, security issues and logistical problems, such as the distribution of ballots.
Election officials say high mountain snows would prevent many thousands of Afghans from voting in the spring.
“Weather, funding, operational challenges and logistical issues, and of course security, remain the same and there have not been solutions to these problems,” said Azizullah Lodin, the head of the election commission.
Adhering to the earlier deadline would be “impossible,” Lodin said.
Karzai last week asked the commission to re-examine the date to see if it could be held in line with the Afghan Constitution, which says Karzai must step down on May 22 and that elections must be held 30 days to 60 days before that.
A late summer vote means the country will face a three-month gap between the end of Karzai’s term and the election.
Lawmakers have said they won’t recognize Karzai as president beginning on May 22, which could throw the country into a constitutional crisis. Some lawmakers have called for a caretaker president to replace Karzai.
The constitution gives Karzai at least two options to avoid a crisis — call a state of emergency that would extend his presidency, but that would need lawmakers’ approval, or call a loya jirga — a grand meeting of Afghan leaders — to negotiate an agreement.
The car bomb blast outside Bagram wounded three civilian contractors working for a US company, but it wasn’t immediately clear what nationalities the three were, said Lieutenant Colonel Rumi Nielson-Green, a US spokeswoman.
The attack occurred near a parking area where truck drivers bringing in supplies gather. The driver of the car bomb abandoned the vehicle before it detonated, but the attacker was also carrying explosives which detonated, killing him, the US military said.
A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for the blast soon after the attack.
Meanwhile, a Chinese diplomat said it was premature to consider if China would provide support for NATO’s war effort in Afghanistan, a state newspaper reported yesterday after a senior US official said the alliance might ask Beijing for help.
The China Daily newspaper cited a Chinese diplomat as saying that Beijing shared a common interest with NATO in fighting terrorism and wanting to see a stable Afghanistan.
However, Chinese Ambassador to Germany Ma Canrong (馬燦榮), said that more thought was needed to decide whether China should cooperate with the US-led alliance and if so, in what way.
“There is little link between China and NATO at the government level,” Ma told the newspaper on the sidelines of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a meeting in Beijing of the main legislative advisory body.
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