Although there seems to be ‘ALL OKAY’ gesture from all the stakeholders but it looks very difficult that fair and free elections should be held according to the schedule. Those who are seeing the true face of picture are worried about these elections. Main concern of people is about the system that has been adopted for the registration of voters by the Independent Election Commission (IEC). According to this setup, all the Afghans who are 18 or above should get themselves registered so that they should be able to cast their vote. The above procedure is very useful and essential for averting the danger of fake votes and other electoral frauds but such an arrangement can only be managed in a country where there should be completely security, people should be aware of the power of their vote and registration centers should be easily accessible.

Moreover, people should be willing to register themselves and the process of registration should be so easy that they should be able to do so without travelling to far distant areas or wasting a day or more of their precious time.

But unfortunately, when this law of voters’ registration was being drafted, all these factors were not duly considered and it is feared that only a small minority of citizens eligible for voting would be registered and a government elected by this small minority cannot be called a representative government of the people of country.

The biggest challenge in this regard is the lack of awareness in the public about the process of registration. Let aside the backward and far-flung provinces, majority of people in the capital city of Kabul don’t know about the registration process. Awareness increased a little after the concerned authorities started a media campaign on different television channels of the country.  It is feared that the level of awareness would be even less in other provinces of the country.

After this, people are not aware of the location for registration. If people and elders of vicinity could have been involved while selecting a registration center, people could have become more aware of their locations and thus they could have easily come to register themselves.

Another big threat is increasing violence and insecurity in the country. As affirmed by a UN report, violence and civilian killings have exacerbated in the first half of 2013 and increasing civilian and military casualties in bombs, attacks of militants and other incidents doesn’t bring any improved picture for the remaining half. In such a condition of fear and insecurity, it is not logical to expect the people to go out of their homes and register themselves. The situation gets even worse in provinces where militancy is at rise like Helmand, Nangarhar and many others.

In such circumstances, it seems very difficult that free and fair elections would be held according to the schedule. It is urged that a parliamentary committee should be established for the oversight of entire electoral process.