Violence rocks Afghanistan as campaign season ends

KANDAHAR: Candidates in Afghanistan´s presidential election pushed their messages for the last time Wednesday as campaigning for weekend polls wrapped up amid deadly violence.

The bloodshed that has marred the election since day one showed no sign of abating, with fresh blasts targeting the campaign offices of President Ashraf Ghani, including one late Tuesday that killed a local journalist. Fears also abound for a repeat of the last presidential poll, in 2014, which was beset by allegations of systematic fraud. After two days of no campaigning on Thursday and Friday, Afghans head to the polls Saturday to decide whether Ghani — who was elected in 2014 — should be awarded a second term. Eighteen names appear on the ballot but the only other candidate thought to have a chance is Ghani´s main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan´s “chief executive” who was awarded the role after 2014´s bitter election. Both contenders and their running mates held rallies across Afghanistan on Wednesday.

Saturday´s poll was initially slated to take place in April, but was twice delayed because election workers were not prepared, and the US was leading a push to forge a withdrawal agreemnent with the Taliban. That deal has been scuppered for now after US President Donald Trump pulled out. Many Afghans have said they will boycott Saturday´s elections, saying their votes won´t be fairly counted. Afghanistan´s Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) tried to reassure voters. “We are fully prepared to the hold the presidential election. All the technical and other preparations have been taken,” said IEC chairwoman Hawa Alam Nuristani. “I assure the people that our work in the election commissions will be sincere and impartial.

The first day of campaigning two months ago saw the Taliban target Ghani´s running-mate Amrullah Saleh in an attack that killed 20 people. Bloody attacks have rocked Afghanistan on a near daily basis, including a Taliban bombing at a Ghani rally last week that killed at least 26 people in the central province of Parwan near Kabul. On Wednesday, officials said an Afghan journalist wounded by a roadside bomb as he headed home from work Tuesday had died.