Statement by Kai Eide, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan

24 Jan 2010

Statement by Kai Eide, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan

KABUL - I respect the Independent Election Commission’s (IEC) decision to postpone Afghanistan’s Parliamentary elections until 18 September 2010.

Dari and Pashto

This decision is based on Article 55 of Afghanistan’s electoral law which allows the IEC to postpone elections on the grounds of security, financial, or technical conditions.

The postponement gives the electoral institutions additional time to carry out the necessary preparations for the elections.

This would have been extremely difficult to do by the original date. It also provides time to make improvements to the electoral process based on lessons-learned during the Presidential and Provincial Council elections in 2009.