{"id":19092,"date":"2018-10-19T12:30:59","date_gmt":"2018-10-19T12:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=19092"},"modified":"2018-10-19T12:30:59","modified_gmt":"2018-10-19T12:30:59","slug":"afghanistan-kandahar-elections-delayed-by-a-week-over-killings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=19092","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan: Kandahar elections delayed by a week over killings"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Kabul, Afghanistan –<\/strong> Parliamentary elections in southern Afghanistan’s Kandahar province,\u00a0due to be held on Saturday, will be delayed by a week following the assassination of a powerful provincial police commander<\/span>, according to the electoral body and the president’s spokesman.<\/p>\n

President Ashraf Ghani’s\u00a0spokesman\u00a0Haroon Chakansuri said in a tweet that the decision was made following demands from residents of the province and recommendation from electoral officials.<\/p>\n

The suspension of the polls followed the assassination of Kandahar province’s police chief General Abdul Raziq<\/a>\u00a0in an attack claimed by the Taliban<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The southern province’s intelligence chief, Abdul Mohmin, was also killed in the attack on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Chakansuri said the new date for the polls will be announced later and did not give further details.<\/p>\n

Afghans in other provinces will be voting on Saturday to elect members of parliament in polls delayed repeatedly for the past three years.<\/p>\n

The interior ministry said they have put in place measures to ensure voting happens without incident.<\/p>\n

“The election is going according to plan. We have measures and we meet regularly. There will be no problem,” Nasrat Rahimi, deputy spokesman for the interior ministry, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

“Over 70,000 security forces are there to maintain security. They are on high alert,” Rahimi said.<\/p>\n

The Taliban have called the vote “fake” and warned people against taking part in the election. The vote is seen as a major test of the government’s ability to organise a peaceful, free and fair poll.<\/p>\n

Since campaigning started late last month, at least 10 candidates have been killed and two others abducted.<\/p>\n

More than eight million Afghans have registered to take in the poll – the third since the Taliban were removed from power in 2001.<\/p>\n

Polling stations will not open in at least a third of the country due to security concerns, the electoral commission told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

Taliban still control a third of the country.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in Kandahar, Abdul Raziq’s funeral was held in Kherqa Mubarak – one of the holiest shrines in the city.<\/p>\n

Abdul Raziq – who survived several attempts on his life – was killed after a bodyguard opened fire after a meeting in the governor’s compound.<\/p>\n

The top US commander in Afghanistan, General Scott Miller, who attended the meeting with Abdul Raziq only moments earlier, was not hurt in the attack. Three Americans were wounded.<\/p>\n

Abdul Raziq’s father and uncle were both killed by the Taliban in 1994.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kabul, Afghanistan – Parliamentary elections in southern Afghanistan’s Kandahar province,\u00a0due to be held on Saturday, will be delayed by a week following the assassination of a powerful provincial police commander, according to the electoral body and the president’s spokesman. President Ashraf Ghani’s\u00a0spokesman\u00a0Haroon Chakansuri said in a tweet that the decision was made following demands from…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":19093,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}