WASHINGTON - The United States on Monday said that candidates running for Afghanistan’s presidency had an important responsibility to prevent fraud in Saturday’s presidential vote.    

“Fraud detection’s an important part of what the IEC has been doing. We do think the candidates themselves have a responsibility here, a real responsibility to see that these elections go off without fraud,” the State Department Deputy spokesperson said.

Marie Harf told reporters the runners should encourage their supporters to refrain from the types of fraud seen in 2009. She explained her remarks in no way constituted a hidden message to one of the candidates, Zalmai Rassoul.

Despite the Taliban-linked violence in parts of Afghanistan, people wanted to make their voices heard and be a part of the process, she observed.

“We do believe that a peaceful and timely political transition through elections … is critical to Afghanistan’s stability and democratic development, as well as to sustaining international support,” she added.

In terms of a long-term US presence, obviously, the issue of the Bilateral Security Agreement was yet to be resolved, the spokeswoman said, stressing early signing of the deal. The United States, she said, had never set a deadline for signing the pact.

“What we said a while ago -- when we first talked about the fact that it became clear that President Karzai was not going to sign the BSA – that we’ve left open the possibility of concluding a BSA later this year,” she said.

Harf said the US believed that the Afghan electoral institutions were better prepared to administer elections and detect and prevent fraud today than they were in 2009. (Pajhwok)