Price of a voter card? Taliban offer Rs500

Residents in Nangarhar province are being offered money to opt out of the election.

JALALABAD:

The Taliban have launched a violent campaign to disrupt today’s presidential election, but in a restive eastern corner of the country they are paying villagers to surrender their voting cards.

Residents in Nangarhar province, which lies on the border with Pakistan, said local Taliban militants have been offering voters 500 Pakistani rupees to opt out of the election. “At first we thought the Taliban were trying to trick us and wanted to find out who had voter cards, but later we found out that they were honest and paid money,” said Ahmad Shah, a youth in a village just outside Jalalabad.

The Taliban did not respond to a request for comment.

“When the Taliban are in control and warn people not to vote, and instead pay money for your voter card, it’s not a bad thing,” Haji Khan Wali, another man in the village, where the Pakistani rupee is more commonly used than the local currency,the Afghani.

“People here have to think more about finding bread to feed their families than the election. To tell you the truth, half the people here don’t know anything about the election,” said Khan.

Local officials said they were aware of such reports from remote areas of Nangarhar, which are under Taliban influence.

In Nangarhar alone, 115 polling stations will not open due to concerns about mass fraud and ballot-stuffing as well as security, the provincial election chief, Akhtar Mohammad Ajmal, told Reuters. Meanwhile, a 10-year-old was caught with 1,200 fake voting cards in neighbouring Kunar province this week.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 5^th, 2014.