Afghanistan has announced that the Saturday parliamentary election has been postponed in the Kandahar Province over security concerns. The vote will be delayed at least a week, with the election commission still pushing to suspend voting in Kandahar outright.
Kandahar is one of the biggest provinces in Afghanistan, and them not voting in the poll is a major blow to its credibility. The region is in chaos, however, after a Thursday insider attack killed the province’s governor, deputy governor, and police chief.
This greatly expands how much of Afghanistan won’t be participating on voting day. Already, parts of the Ghazni Province were not to be voting because officials did not believe they could safely do so.
The election commission can’t do more than postpone the vote without national security officials signing off. The reality of the situation, however, is that all these top officials having been killed is going to leave the province reeling for quite some time.