Afghan President Hamid Karzai yesterday called on the Taliban and other insurgent groups to vote in landmark August elections and to not attack the polls.
At a press conference, Karzai said all eligible Afghans should register for voting cards and cast their ballots in the Aug. 20 presidential and provincial council elections.
“It is also my wish that our Taliban brothers and all other Afghans who are not in Afghanistan for various reasons and are standing in opposition … I request them again and again to renounce violence not only on the election day but forever,” he said.
“It is also my request that they should come to their land, take cards, register and take part in the elections,” he said.
Karzai was likely referring to insurgents based in Pakistan where many Taliban — including the group’s fugitive leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar — are said to have fled after the 2001 US-led invasion that drove the group from power.
He also mentioned by name the radical Hezb-i-Islami faction led by former Afghan prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar that is also fighting his government and the tens of thousands of international troops based in the country.
Karzai is standing for a second term in the elections, the second-ever presidential ballot in a country that has a history of oppressive governments and has been ruined by decades of war.
With a Taliban-led insurgency peaking this year, there are concerns that the militants will attack the polls or intimidate Afghans into not voting especially in the most intense battlefields in the south.
The insurgents have not explicitly announced they would target the polls but have called on Afghans to boycott the elections. However two of the more than 3,000 candidates for the provincial councils have been murdered in recent weeks, with one attack blamed on the Taliban.
The US and Afghanistan’s other international allies have pledged thousands of extra soldiers to protect polling and are also bankrolling the vote to the tune of about US$220 million.
NATO’s top military commander warned last week that insurgents could block transport routes and use intimidation rather than suicide attacks to disrupt the elections.
“I’m sure there will be attempts by the insurgents, the Taliban, to interfere with the polling,” Supreme Allied Commander in Europe John Craddock said at NATO headquarters in Belgium.
Karzai urged militants to “stop sacrificing the Afghan people and to join hands with their nation and provide the ground for the elections in this country.”
“We can lead this country towards further stability through elections. We can try for peace through elections, and through elections we can bring development to this country,” he said.
The leader of the fragile country also called on candidates to prioritize national unity and “avoid a situation of blaming and accusing each other and creating tensions.”
“The day after the elections when the winner is announced … we must live together and sit together,” he said.
Karzai also cautioned against “interference” by any countries that might want to influence the outcome of the elections to protect their operations against extremists.
“The international community, the United States and other countries who have a bigger role here, must rest assured that any future government taking office in Afghanistan will continue their cooperation in the war against terrorism,” he said.
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