The Independent Election Commission (IEC) of country announced the starting of registration for the upcoming elections on Sunday, May 26th. For this purpose, 41 centers have been opened in all the provinces in a way that capital Kabul has three centers while big provinces have two and rest have one registration center only. The process of registration will continue for two months and it is hoped that majority of the voters will be registered by then. According to the media reports, the process of registration in the first five days was satisfactory but not good enough to cover all the citizens in the given time of 60 days. Similarly, the low turnover of women in the process of registration is also a matter of grave concern as their participation is of utmost importance.

Regarding the registration process, few points come into the minds of informed and concerned citizens of country. First concern is about the limited number of registration centers because in majority of the provinces, there is present only one center which is located in the central city and if people from other parts of the province want to get registered, they will have to travel to the center and it is not going to be easy for majority of the people. It is needed that more centers should be opened so that people should be able to easily get themselves registered.

Similarly, the time of 60 days given for the registration is not sufficient, especially in rural areas where there are no developed means of communication and a lot of time may pass until people came to know about the registration. It should be made sure that people should be given an option so that those who have remained out of the registration process after this time should be able to do registration.

First important condition for the success of elections is to make sure the increased participation by people in the elections or increase turnover. For this purpose, Election Commission, political parties and other concerned authorities should initiate campaigns so that more and more people should come to know about the importance of election and general awareness should be enhanced in this regard. The same strategy was successfully implemented in the general elections of our neighboring country, Pakistan, where a record and historic turnover was observed.

Regarding the increase of awareness of public about elections, media can play a vital role and till now, there has not been noticed any kind of advertisement in this regard. It is hoped that soon a vast media campaign will be started all across the country and all these measures would ensure successful elections with maximum participation by the citizens.