By KUNA,
London : After a summer of fraud in favour of President Hamid Karzai, US and British officials said holding a May poll was now unrealistic, it was revealed Thursday.
The two allies are in dispute with European states over whether to fund and secure the elections in the spring or press for postponement until 2011, The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported.
The Afghan constitution states elections for the lower house of the parliament and for district councils must be held in May. But after the widespread fraud of this summer’s presidential poll, London and Washington fear soldiers would risk Taliban attacks securing polling stations for a barely credible election plagued by renewed ballot stuffing. The officials said holding a May poll was now unrealistic and without widespread reform it would “throw good money after bad”, the paper added. It would also divert the mission of the newly deployed 30,000 US soldiers from Gen Stanley McChrystal’s revised strategy of securing towns and cities at the expense of rural districts. District council elections are already described as “off the table” because of a failure to draw up district boundaries. Now the US and UK are understood to favour postponing the parliamentary poll, but several European nations are arguing the coalition must adhere to the Afghan constitution. The Afghan Independent Election Commission (IEC) has yet to receive any budget for the elections and has not announced a schedule for the poll. Kabul is reliant on Western donors for funds and without international money the election is unlikely to proceed. Preparations have been further hampered by the withdrawal of almost 90 per cent of the United Nation’s election staff following a Taliban attack on a guesthouse which killed six workers. A western source said: “There’s no consensus in the international community about elections and it’s the subject of lively debate. “There are a lot of obstacles towards holding elections in 2010. The elections are supposed to be held in May which is a very short time.”