{"id":90719,"date":"2019-05-18T06:29:18","date_gmt":"2019-05-18T06:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swn.af\/lib\/khalilzad-calls-for-preparations-for-presidential-election\/"},"modified":"2020-12-19T13:09:49","modified_gmt":"2020-12-19T13:09:49","slug":"khalilzad-calls-for-preparations-for-presidential-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swn.af\/archive\/khalilzad-calls-for-preparations-for-presidential-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Khalilzad calls for preparations for presidential election"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" height=\"327\" src=\"\/2017_Uploads\/2019\/May\/18\/8111E659-DDE2-4154-BB90-066A90BA4059_w1023_r1_s.jpg\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p>MONITORING (SW) &ndash; Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, has called for preparations for a credible presidential election.<\/p>\n<p>He said in a series of tweets that Afghans want peace above all else. &ldquo;A peace process that delivers a political settlement is THE priority&rdquo;, he tweeted in a bid to underline Washington&rsquo;s priorities in Afghanistan. &ldquo;But wanting peace does not preclude Afghans from demanding preparations for a credible presidential election. Election planning must go forward as we pursue the peace Afghans deserve&rdquo;, he tweeted.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul welcomed the finalization of the Kabul parliamentary election results.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We also note the decision of the IEC on May 10 to focus on voting methods that can realistically be implemented this year for the 2019 presidential election&rdquo;, a statement issued by the U.S. Embassy said.<\/p>\n<p>It urged the electoral commission to turn its attention to preparing for the September presidential election, including putting forward a budget request aligned with an appropriate operational plan, hiring and training sufficient staff to complete voter registration and preparations, and coordinating with the security ministries.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The Afghan people deserve the opportunity to choose their next leadership through transparent elections in September.&nbsp; We are prepared to continue supporting this process.&nbsp; We now ask that Afghan authorities do their part to take the decisions and actions necessary to give the Afghan people their voice at the ballot box this year&rdquo;, it said.<\/p>\n<p>ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MONITORING (SW) \u2013 Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, has called for preparations for a credible presidential election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":92664,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[93],"class_list":["post-90719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}