Afghan police and soldiers manned checkpoints at almost every intersection today, searching vehicles and frisking drivers in a massive security operation ahead of elections to choose a new president to guide the country after international combat forces withdraw.
Insurgents fighting the Western-backed government have intensified attacks ahead of Saturday's runoff vote, and the Taliban issued a new statement warning voters to stay away from the polls. The first round in April passed relatively peacefully, but a recent assassination attempt against one of the two presidential hopefuls left in the race has caused fears of more violence to spike.
"The Islamic Emirate deems it necessary to alert the people and warn them for the last time that they should not participate in this American process, deliberately or inadvertently," the Taliban has said yesterday in a statement posted online.
Still, the senior UN envoy for Afghanistan expressed confidence Afghan voters would turn out as they did in the first round to decide their future by picking a new leader to oversee the transition after most US and allied forces pull out by the end of this year.
Jan Kubis, the UN secretary general's special representative for Afghanistan, also called on the candidates to give electoral authorities time to tally the ballots most of which will come from remote regions, often transported by donkeys and resolve any complaints amid widespread fear of fraud.
"Give a chance to due process, respect the work of the Commissions, don't jump to conclusions," he said. "Don't make statements or comments in anticipation of the results. It will just mislead the people. Control yourself, act as responsible politicians."
He was referring to the likelihood that Abdullah and Ahmadzai's campaigns will start releasing their tallies from monitors at polling sites before formal results are announced.
The official timetable is for preliminary results to be announced on July 2 and final results on July 22 in order to allow time for ballots to be secured and fraud complaints investigated.
