The Interior Ministry has once again announced distribution of the electronic identification cards will begin by Thursday next week. Muhammad Farhad, Director of ID cards at Interior Ministry says the distribution of cards will begin by April 18. He added that they will distribute 12 to 18 million electronic ID cards within one year.

The e-Tazkira registration and distribution have been postponed several times since last month. Some view at as an intentional delay-tactic at play to affect the voter registration process for elections. According to the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology all equipments and materials needed for the distribution of the electronic ID cards have been provided by the ministry to the joint committee of the distribution of ID cards. Officials say the machines can produce up to 80,000 cards a day with each machine able to print 400 an hour.

Some say that delay-tactic is working well in parallel with other maneuvering designs underway. President Karzai was supposed to have the first e-Tazkira last month, but it was delayed. Opposition parties and civil society organization have called for the electronic ID cards to be used for election, after its completion. The delay-tactic is intentional so that the old voter registration lists remain only option. Those cards can be bought at cheap prices all over the country. There were over 17 million of them, while actual eligible voters for this year are about 15 million. The fraud machinery could actually hijack the election results through these lists and ghost voters, a repeat of what happened in 2009. Two million nonexistent fraud registered voters can decide the fate of Presidential elections in 2014.

Officials say the e-Tazkira project will take time and it cannot be completed before 2014 elections. The Interior Ministry should immediately start the registration and distribution of ID cards so that as many voter registration could be completed as possible. With the capacity of the equipment, a fast-track multi-operational program could actually complete distribution to all before elections across the country. However, each day delayed increases the chances of all the old voter registration cards to be used.

Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry had also announced distribution of computerized passports. In a news conference two weeks ago, it was announced and now everyday people visit the Passport Department to be told that they can only apply for computerized passport when the electronic ID cards are distributed.