NATO Head Rasmussen: Afghanistan Elections Security Success

World | August 20, 2009, Thursday // 18:46
Bulgaria: NATO Head Rasmussen: Afghanistan Elections Security Success Afghan workers of independent election commission count ballot papers, at the end of polling day, in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan on 20 August 2009.

NATO Secretary-General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has declared Thursday's Afghanistan elections "a security success".

In a special video address from Iceland, where Rasmussen is on a visit, the NATO head said the Afghanistan elections were "encouraging". On Thursday, Afghanistan voted in the country's second Presidential Elections after the ousting of the Taliban regime in 2001, as well as in local elections.

After the closing of the polls earlier on Thursday, the Afghanistan government announced that 26 security officers and civilians had been killed in acts of violence during the Election Day.

"We are satisfied with the participation of our people in the elections", the country's Interior Minister, Hanif Atmar, said at a press conference.

In his words, over 70% of the provinces in the country showed high voter turnout; the participation in the other 30% of the country, where the security situation is complicated, has also been high.

The Afghanistan authorities expect that the voter turnout will be about 50% - as it was in the 2004 Presidential Elections; this, however, will be substantially lower than in the 2005 parliamentary elections when it was about 70%.

 

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Tags: Afghanistan, elections, Presidential elections, Taliban, NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Secretary General

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