KABUL - The Independent Election Commission (IEC) of Afghanistan started a toll-free telephone hotline in the capital, Kabul, on Tuesday, to provide “correct information” to the Afghan public on next year’s Presidential and Provincial Council elections, according to an IEC news release.

IEC said the establishment of the call centre is one of “various programs for different groups of the [Afghan] society in order to inform them of the voter registration process and of future phases of forthcoming elections.”

“The Commission, based on the provisions of the law, is obliged and committed to provide facilities for the participation of all people who are eligible to vote in the electoral process,” added the IEC.

The IEC spokesperson, Noor Mohammad Noor, said 30 staff members would be on hand at the centre to respond to inquiries in the Dari and Pashto languages from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. every day.

The call centre has been “one of our biggest operations” in the lead up to elections since the country’s first presidential elections in 2004, said Mr. Noor.

At the height of the campaigning ahead of the 2009 presidential elections, similar election hotline received up to 25,000 calls a week.

Afghanistan is slated to hold the Presidential and Provincial Council elections on 5 April 2014. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) is mandated to support – at the request of the Afghan authorities – the organization of the elections as well as to strengthen, in support of the Government’s own efforts, the sustainability, integrity and inclusiveness of the electoral process and provide capacity building and technical assistance to the Afghan institutions involved in this process.

As well, the ELECT II (Enhancing Legal and Electoral Capacity for Tomorrow II) project of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) has been providing long-term assistance to the IEC, focusing on institutional strengthening and capacity development, with an overarching objective of supporting the national electoral institutions to plan and conduct credible elections with minimal external support, and to better ensure the integrity of the process.

UN officials have said in the past that a smooth transfer of power through a transparent, credible and inclusive election next year is critical to Afghanistan’s future. In a statement issued earlier this week, UNAMA said that Afghan-led and Afghan-managed 2014 elections are central to Afghanistan's “stable and sustainable political transition.”

Anyone seeking information on the electoral process can reach the call centre by dialing the tell-number “190” from within Afghanistan.