KABUL (Pajhwok): The Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Saturday announced launching a 20-day voter registration process for the Sept 28 presidential election.
Habib Rahman Nang, IEC secretary, told a press conference here the voter registration would underway until June 29.
He added the process was launched to document eligible voters who had not registered before and had reached the legal age recently or who had not attached stickers to their ID cards.
According to Nang, voters will be listed at 705 registration centres -- 247 in southern Ghazni and the rest in other provinces.
More registration centres have been set up in Ghazni province because the voter registration process had not taken place there. Voters in other provinces have been registered before the Wolesi Jirga elections.
The election official said the voter registration process would take 20 days and the details of registration centres had been shared with security organs to maintain their security.
IEC head Hawa Alam Nuristani, while officially launching the voter registration process, said eligible voters could register themselves from 7:00am till 4:00pm.
She said $23 million has been allocated for the registration process and public awareness about the process.
Naeem Ayubzada, the Transparent Election Foundation of Afghanistan (TEFA) head, welcomed the launch of the voter registration process but said no mechanism had been considered to ensure transparency and effectiveness of the process.
He highlighted the inexperience of IEC members and said the presidential election might face some problems.
Yousuf Rashid, head of Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA), said public awareness programs should have been focused on before starting the voter registration process.
According to the IEC, around 8.9 million voters had been registered in three phases before the Wolesi Jirga polls. The presidential election is scheduled to be held on September 28.
sa/ma