During the election campaign for the second and final round of presidential polls, the advertisements and comments made by both the presidential candidates were also getting awkward and inappropriate. Both the candidates were warned by the Independent Election Commission to avoid divisive comments and remarks based on ethnicity that might give birth to divide among the different sects and tribes in the country. Very recently, US ambassador in Kabul, James Cunningham called on both the candidates to avoid divisive messages because Afghans needed their next president to be the equal representative of all the Afghans and take them together towards social solidarity and mutual development.

However, the advertisements on some of the television channels and newspapers showed the immaturity and lack of personal respect and acceptance by the campaign officers of both the candidates. It is a generally accepted rule that election campaigns may criticize or target the flaws in the policy of the rival candidate but making personal attacks and trying to insult the signs or elements of the other candidate is at the same time both shameful and non-professional. In one of the advertisements, a candidate resembled himself with a bright light while the other candidate was compared to a bleak darkness. In another advertisement, a candidate regarded his sign as a sign of success while the other sign as sign of stupidity. In the same way, a candidate called himself the representative of all while declared the other candidate as the representative of some people or corrupt people. These and many other similar advertisements were resulting in the stupid personal and emotional attacks on each other that is not going to do any good to the candidates but it would only create a kind of atmosphere where there is no healthy competition. Calling each other to be ill-mannered, less-educated, inappropriate and making similar awkward remarks show that our candidates have to learn so many lessons to participate in healthy elections.

It is requested that the members of IEC, social and political experts and media personnel should take notice of such inappropriate advertisements and bring them in the notice of public. At the same time, we hope that both the candidates would take notice of such inappropriate advertisements as both of them are considered to be educated and broad-minded in the general public. It is also necessary that both the candidates should be mentally ready to accept the results of the elections with an open-heart and the winning candidate should not rear any kind of antagonistic feelings against those tribes, groups or regions of country that were with his opposite camp in the elections.