As Afghan polls open on Saturday morning, potential voters face a difficult question about whether to participate or not. Corruption has made Afghan votes sketchy in the best of times, and threats of violence by the Taliban and ISIS make it dangerous to even be out in public on election day.
Given how little impact the results of parliamentary votes in the past, Afghan officials fear that turnout will be particularly low. That, and the fact that Kandahar and much of Ghazni won’t be opening the poll at all, add to concerns that this won’t be a particularly credible election.
This is doubly true because the parliamentary election was supposed to happen in 2015, and just kept getting delayed. Past Afghan votes saw massive amounts of fraud, so even voting is no guarantee the vote will ever be counted.
Afghan officials say more people are registered to vote this time than in the past votes, but that’s no guarantee that they will show up at the polls. Nine candidates have already been killed in attacks on rallies, and attacks are expected against polling locations.
So much winning…..
Obviously we’re not winning the “hearts and minds” though, Dave. This is so much like Vietnam, it’s scary. My guess is, this occupation will end in much the same way, with helicopters rescuing collaborators and hangers-on from the top of the American embassy, just like in Saigon.
It’s a ‘religious duty’ to oppose Afghan elections, Taliban says
…from LongWarJournal —
https://www.longwarjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/18-10-19-Taliban-image-768×408.jpg
The elections are not going well.
some news–
>Afghanistan’s deputy chief executive says he’s outraged by the chaotic start to polling in Afghanistan’s Parliamentary elections. Mohammad Mohaqiq, in an interview with a local TV station, assailed election preparation by the country’s Independent Election Commission.
>The closing of polls in Saturday’s Parliamentary elections were as chaotic as the opening with even the Independent Election Commission uncertain of how many of the estimated 21,000 polling stations closed by 4 p.m. local time, the original closing time.
>As the day began it quickly became clear that polling stations were struggling with voters list and a new biometric system aimed at stemming fraud but instead created enormous confusion because many of those trained on the system did not show up for work. Also the biometric machines were received just a month before polls and there was no time to do field testing.
>Thousands of outraged voters blocked a road north of the capital Kabul on Saturday after waiting more than five hours for a polling station to open, says Mohammad Azim, governor of Qarabagh district where the demonstration took place.
>Khaled Haq Parast says two civilians were also wounded when the explosive devise detonated as voters were going to the polling station Saturday in Afghanistan’s Parliamentary polls. Elsewhere in election day violence, Taliban fighters ambushed and killed four local police in central Ghor province as they were making their way to a polling center in the capital of Firozkoh, several hours after voting had begun nationwide in parliamentary elections, says Abdul Hai Khateby, spokesman for the provincial governor. here
The only “winners” of this war will be the banksters and the MIC, as they always do in any war.