Afghanistan nears first-ever direct vote elections

KABUL, Afghanistan - Nine out of 10 eligible Afghans have signed up for landmark October elections, the United Nations said Sunday, a resounding endorsement of a democratic experiment supposed to help Afghanistan turn its back on years of debilitating war.\nWomen and ethnic minorities are strongly represented among those registered for the first-ever direct vote for president. But parts of the south risk being left behind because of stepped-up attacks on election workers and Afghan and U.S. security forces.\nFirst tallies since the eight-month registration drive began winding down Saturday show 8.7 million of an estimated 9.8 million eligible voters have collected ID cards for the Oct. 9 election. Forty-one percent of those registered were women.\n"The participation is amazing," U.N. spokesman David Singh said. "There was a lot of skepticism about this process at the beginning, but the targets have been fulfilled."\nThe turnout is a relief for the world body, which has overcome misgivings about Afghanistan's readiness for elections under strong pressure from the United States. The vote had been delayed from June because of slow progress disarming warlords' private armies. A vote for Parliament was put off until next spring.\nIt is also a boost for President Hamid Karzai, who is widely expected to defeat 22 rivals to secure a new, five-year term. The U.S.-backed interim leader was still saying in June that 6 million registered voters would be enough.\n"We are overwhelmed with joy at the sheer enthusiasm of the people," presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin said. "It's essentially the first important step toward a successful and legitimate election process."\nAfghans have flocked to register in the north, west and center of the country, where regional leaders -- including opponents of Karzai's drive for a centralized state -- have encouraged their supporters to sign up. Ethnic rivalry in a country deeply scarred by years of infighting has also encouraged communities to make sure they are fully represented.\nU.N. figures suggest one-third of the estimated 1.05 million voters in five southern provinces dominated by the country's main Pashtun ethnic group have yet to register.\nIn the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, Singh said the number of those registered had exceeded the projected total -- suggesting either fraud or the estimate of the electorate was far too conservative.\nOfficials acknowledge cases of people registering more than once, but say a dab of indelible ink on every voter's finger will limit fraud on polling day. Many underage Afghans may also have slipped through.\nStill, officials say registration teams will have to continue working for weeks, yet in the perilous south and southeast, where a virulent Taliban insurgency threatens to de-couple militant heartlands from the rest of the country.