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Afghans set to vote despite Taliban threats, corruption

KABUL:Afghans will return to the polls for parliamentary elections on Saturday, hoping to bring change to a corrupt government that has lost nearly half the country to the Taliban.

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Kabul, October 19 

Afghans will return to the polls for parliamentary elections on Saturday, hoping to bring change to a corrupt government that has lost nearly half the country to the Taliban. In the eight years since Afghanistan last held parliamentary elections, a resurgent Taliban have carried out near-daily attacks on security forces, seizing large swathes of the countryside and threatening major cities. 

An even more radical Islamic State affiliate has launched a wave of bombings targeting the country’s Shia minority, killing hundreds. Both groups have threatened to attack anyone taking part in the vote.

In areas where the government still provides relative security, Afghans face a different array of challenges. Widespread corruption forces people to pay bribes for shabby public services, and increasingly influential ultraconservative clerics blame the country’s many ills on years of Western influence, threatening to roll back the limited gains made by women and civil society since the 2001 US-led invasion.

Many of those Afghans brave enough to defy the death threats hope to vote in a new generation of younger and better-educated leaders. But they fear that former warlords and the corrupt political elite will cling to power by lavishing entertainment and cash handouts on impoverished voters.

“I am still not hopeful it will be fair,” said Saeed Matin, a fruit seller in a mostly Shiite neighborhood of Kabul who was bundled up against the chilly autumn evening. He waved off the threats from the Taliban and said he hoped for new leadership, pointing to campaign posters showing younger candidates.

 “These corrupt people are paying 3,000 Afghanis (nearly $50) for each vote. They are not interested in the country, only in what they can put in their pocket.” Afghanistan is ranked among the most corrupt countries in the world by Transparency International, which last year called efforts by President Ashraf Ghani’s government to stem runaway corruption “insufficient.” 

Poor governance has also confounded Washington’s efforts to find a peaceful exit from the 17-year war, the longest in American history, which has cost the US more than 2,400 lives and over $900 billion.

Despite the widespread pessimism, analysts and activists say the elections  send an important message to the Taliban that no matter how unpopular the current government is, the political system is here to stay. 

Why polls matter? 

  • Most Afghans are desperate for a better life, jobs, education and an end to the war with the Taliban. For the country’s foreign partners, seeing a flourishing democracy would be the return they’re seeking after many years of investment, billions of dollars spent and thousands of lives lost in more than a decade of fighting
  • This will be the third parliamentary election since the Taliban were removed in 2001. They should have been held when the current assembly’s five-year term ended in 2015. But the standoff after the disputed 2014 presidential election changed all that, bringing the country to the brink of civil war

2500 Candidates contesting
250 total seats

— AP

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