KABUL - The Afghan Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Saturday said that the National Assembly has delayed approval of the election laws to the point that there is no longer sufficient time before the election to implement them in their entirety.

Fazal Ahmad Manawi, head of the IEC, said that, up to now, most of the election affairs have done led by President Legislative Decree and the remaining will also be implemented in the same way. Although the Law of Governing Independent Election Commission and Election Law are near finalized approval in the National Assembly, Mr. Manawi maintains that there is no time to implement the laws accordingly.

"With approval of the laws delayed, the Commission worked necessarily by the legislative decree of the president, and now if the law is approved, the time for its implementation is not enough. We will go through election by this decree, there is no other way," said Chairman Manawi.

Nevertheless, the IEC was proud to announce the progress made in the voter registration process. According to IEC spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor, over 21,000 women out of around 100,000 Afghan citizens that have registered now have voting cards. Numbers are expected to rise dramatically in the coming months as registration centers will be open nationwide on July 27th.

Registration centers will be open until just two weeks before the election day, and the commission hopes to distribute a total of around 4 million voting cards to eligible citizens. (Tolo News)