KABUL - A recent election poll conducted by the Democracy International (DI) Organization of more than 2,500 Afghan citizens across all 34 provinces and in at least 115 district revealed that 85 percent of the Afghan citizens have shown interests to participate in the upcoming presidential elections.
The rest of the survey raised questions about the candidates, the vice-presidents and other issues such as security and transparency. Elaborating on the topic, Mohammad Hassan Fidayee, Research fellow of Democracy International said, “85 percent of the interviewees have shown interests to cast ballots in the upcoming elections and only 8 percent have said that they wouldn’t participate in the polling, 60 of the interviewees have also said that the families whom they will also cast votes in the elections.” The survey found that the 83 percent of men and 63 percent of women intend to participate in the upcoming presidential elections.
“When asked what the biggest problem is across Afghanistan? Those interviewed said security, terrorism and crime, and 19 percent said economic difficulty as well,” Democracy International employee Fawzia Rahimi Jamal said. Amongst all the challenges facing the upcoming elections, respondents said security was their top concern. “The aim of the poll was to reflects people’s ideas, not the ideas of experts,” Democracy International manager Sayeed Yaseen Hussaini. “We covered 2,500 Afghan across the country, taking into account various levels of education, literacy and ethnicity.” According to the poll, corruption and Taliban violence were listed as the other major worries of those surveyed. In the survey, 81percent have said that living standard of the Afghan people is now better than the past, 34 percent have expressed satisfaction that security situations have developed as compare to the previous five years, 30 percent have said that no change has occurred while and 20 percent have said that security has worsened.
In the survey, majority of the interviewees have said that the next president should be honest, patriotic and a good Muslim, 52 percent have said that they have obtained adequate information and acquaintance about the profile and background of presidential and provincial councils’ candidates. Meanwhile, a number of political commentators and civil society institutions have declared the survey as hopeful news and have emphasized that this will further intensify public confidence on modality of upcoming presidential contests.
In addition, nationals of the country are interpreting the upcoming elections from positive perspectives and they urge upon the government to undertake all out efforts so that riggings and violations prevented in the elections. The people should use their constitutional right and cast ballots in the upcoming elections to bring the country out of the current challenges, another citizen Ahmad Rishad stated.” “The people of Afghanistan expect that holding of the presidential elections on it due time will lead the country towards sustainable democracy and economic opulence, government is obliged to provide satisfactory security to the elections, local resident Farhad said.”
“The elections should be held on time, any fraud and illegality could harm legitimacy of the elections and it could bring new crisis for Afghanistan, a resident from eastern city of Jalalabad Ahmad Fawad added.” This comes at a time that in the past Asia Foundation had also conducted on Afghanistan’s economic development and this time Democracy International has strived to find out public trusts on the upcoming presidential and provincial councils elections. (BNA)