PHASE 4 VOTER REGISTRATION IS A STRONG FINISH

UNCLAS KABUL 000399

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KDEM PGOV AF
SUBJECT: PHASE 4 VOTER REGISTRATION IS A STRONG FINISH

REF: A. KABUL 000154

B. KABUL 000237

C. KABUL 000313


1. (SBU) The fourth and final phase of the voter
registration update for the 2009 presidential and provincial
council elections ended February 20. A few districts that
opened late will operate additional days to complete the full
thirty-day registration period (REF A.) As of February 19,
Independent Election Commission (IEC) figures show 495,484
new voters joined the rolls in the four southern provinces:
275,020 in Kandahar; 133,313 in Helmand; 66,687 in Uruzgan;
and 20,464 in Nimroz. This total is 39 per cent of the
number of voters registered by 2005, putting Phase 4 near the
rest of the country, where the comparable figure is 42
percent. Some 32 percent of new Phase 4 voters were women,
almost equal to the 39 percent for the other three phases.


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VIOLENCE - THE DOG DID NOTHING IN THE NIGHTTIME
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2. (SBU) Contrary to the expectations of Afghan and
international security forces, the Taliban fighters that
drove violence in the south up to new levels in 2008 did not
target the Phase 4 voter registration process. Public
statements by Taliban leaders in Pakistan threatening voters
and condemning elections did not translate into a campaign of
killings or bombings. This curious fact meant that in thirty
days of voter registration, no election workers were killed,
no electoral offices or voter registration sites were
attacked, and intimidation and harassment of voters was
ineffective. Frequent targets of Taliban operations -- such
as police and moderate religious figures -- continued to come
under attack, so that some violent incidents overlapped with
the voter registration process. As reported REF B, police
arrested suspects after two men shot and killed a police
officer outside a Kandahar city voter registration site. On
February 22 Kandahar provincial security chiefs told the
media that police discovered and defused more than 100 bombs
in the past two months, but that voter registration had
finished without major security incidents.


3. (SBU) The established presence of Taliban in five
Helmand districts and two Kandahar districts, and the
consequent inability of government representatives and
security forces to operate there, curtailed opportunities for
these citizens to register. Electoral officials cite
numerous anecdotes indicating residents of these areas
traveled to other registration sites. Demand in Helmand's
capital city of Lashkar Gah exceeded expectations, most
likely as a result of such displacements (REF C.) The IEC
also opened substitute sites near the two closed districts in
Kandahar (REF A.)

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LOCAL LEADERSHIP
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4. (SBU) Zekria Barakzai, Deputy Chief Technical Officer of
the IEC, on February 22 said the support of grassroots
religious leaders and certain provincial governors was key to
the success of Phase 4 operations. The IEC hired as many
local mullahs as possible to work as civic educators and
election workers. Among local officials, Helmand's Governor
Mangal was especially active in voter outreach, holding a
variety of meetings and rallies in outlying areas despite
substantial threat to his personal security. Mangal, as noted
septel, is not part of President Karzai's circle of political
favorites, a fact that rebuts suspicions the governor
misallocated state resources to favor the incumbent.
Uruzgan's Governor Hamdan, in contrast, remained distant from
the voter registration process, and refused even to work in
his office in the wake of the February 2 suicide attack on
the nearby police station in Tarin Kowt.

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NATIONAL POLITICS
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5. (SBU) Helmand and Kandahar, seen as the Pashtun
homelands and the key battlefront with the Taliban, loom
disproportionately large in national politics. The success
of voter registration there does much to push aside earlier
speculation that insecurity would disenfranchise Pashtuns and
discredit the elections. Karzai and his rivals increasingly
appear ready to acknowledge that the race is on.
DELL