![\"\"](\"http:\/\/umang.pk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Taliban-worries-loom-as-Afghanistan-prepares-to-vote-for-a.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
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KABUL: Millions of Afghans are expected to face the threat of militant attacks to vote in a presidential election on Saturday, hoping to avoid repeating a bitter, fraudulent and ultimately unresolved poll in 2014.<\/p>\n
About a dozen candidates are in the fray for the presidency, but current President Ashraf Ghani and its executive director Abdullah Abdullah are the main candidates for the position at a time when the Taliban insurgents have intensified the attacks.<\/p>\n
Ghani and Abdullah, 70, 59, have ruled through a fractured agreement to share power since 2014, their forces fighting the Taliban even when the rebels held peace talks with the United States that were later abandoned.<\/p>\n The Taliban have more territory now than at any other time since 2001, when their regime was overthrown by a US-led invasion.<\/p>\n \u201cThe people of Afghanistan will defend their free and fair votes. I know that Afghans will protect democracy, "Ghani said at an election rally, adding that the hard-line Islamist group could not overcome the inherent spirit of freedom and desire for progress of the Afghan people.<\/p>\n Militants have more territory now than at any time since 2001<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n However, more than 170 civilians have been killed and more than 300 injured in attacks that involved the Taliban in the pre-election period.<\/p>\n "Stay away from polling stations on election day," the Taliban warned in their last statement.<\/p>\n On Friday, a Taliban spokesman said in a statement that the group had captured the Darah Sof Payan district of the northern province of Samangan, another sign of the rising strength of the insurgency.<\/p>\n Despite decades of war, 9.67 million Afghans registered to vote in 2019 for a population estimated at 34 million.<\/p>\n To fight the militants, the country will deploy more than 100,000 members of the security forces, according to two senior security officials in Kabul.<\/p>\n The Afghan government has allocated $ 90 million and international donors have donated $ 59 million to hold elections in 34 provinces, but hundreds of polling stations in schools and mosques are likely to remain closed following threats from the Taliban.<\/p>\n Ghani's rival, Abdullah, accused the president of abuse of power and use of government resources in his election campaign.<\/p>\n Abdullah said he feared that the result could be biased by electoral fraud and that it would threaten the country's unstable democracy.<\/p>\n \u201cHe (Ghani) has been an obstacle, an obstacle to peace. This person is not suitable for the job, "he told Reuters on Thursday.<\/p>\n If there are "massively fraudulent elections, and someone is announced as a winner, this will not be accepted," he added.<\/p>\n Western and Asian diplomats in Kabul said fear of Taliban violence has reduced enthusiasm for voting, and some expect low record participation.<\/p>\n Other fears include the deprivation of women's rights. Mandatory photographs for voting risk, excluding women in conservative areas where they keep their faces covered outside their homes.<\/p>\n Posted on Dawn, September 28, 2019<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/pre>\n<\/pre>\n Source: https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1507764\/taliban-worries-loom-as-afghanistan-prepares-to-vote-for-a-president<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KABUL: Millions of Afghans are expected to face the threat of militant attacks to vote in a presidential election on Saturday, hoping to avoid repeating a bitter, fraudulent and ultimately unresolved poll in 2014. About a dozen candidates are in the fray for the presidency, but current President Ashraf Ghani and its executive director Abdullah […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[11077],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newspaper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n