Weeks before election, attacks continue against Afghanistan Presidential campaigns

In Afghanistan today, there was another attack on people working for candidates running in next month´s elections. Armed assailants opened fire on a group of campaign workers, wounding a campaign manager for one of President Hamid Karzai´s challengers, Abdullah Abdullah.  A body guard was also killed.

This is the third attack in just under seven days and with the election just weeks away, many are concerned about the persisting violence.  The election is being run mostly by Afghan agencies, but the United Nations is helping with people on the ground and some $200 million in financial support.  Margie cook is with the UN Development Program.

“We´re here to do a lot of work alongside our Afghan colleagues, but it´s a challenge for them too, because they haven´t done this before. And outside of conducting a war, conducting an election is probably the biggest logistics exercise a country has to actually undertake.”

Cook says there are security concerns this year that weren´t an issue in the 2005 elections.

“By all accounts, the security situation is a very different one from that experienced in 2005. In 2005 people could get around much more easily. We're more constrained now and that costs a lot of money in terms of purchasing of armored vehicles, the provision of security equipment, and also for the payment of protection for personnel and locations. So there are a lot of cost challenges, as well as security challenges.”

There are 41 presidential candidates and more than 3,000 provincial council candidates running in the August 20th election.