The Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Tuesday, the last day of 2013, announced that election materials were being first sent to central and eastern provinces, including paper ballots, and would soon be disseminated around the entire country.
Afghanistan will conduct Presidential and Provincial Council elections in April that could prove the most formative event of the coming year, paving a certain path for the country for the next five years. The Presidential vote could prove the first democratic transition of the role in Afghanistan's history.
The IEC said as the new year dawns, election preparations are moving forward in accordance to the timeline and so far there have been no delays. The Commission did not make mention of the delay that the release of the preliminary list of candidates saw back in October.
"2013 was an important year for Afghanistan's Election Commission, we gained many achievements during this year; the IEC pursued dozens of training programs for its employees and we successfully accomplished our tasks and plans with regard to the 2014 elections," IEC Secretariat Chief Zia-ul-Haq Amarkhail said.
The IEC oversaw voter registration, ballot printing and candidate nominations over the past year.
Up to 3.4 million people registered their names in 2013 to cast votes in April, 35 percent of which were women.
The IEC has reported that election materials are now ready to transferred to the provinces, starting with central and eastern ones.
"Up to 14 million ballots have been printed and ballot papers for Provincial Councils are in the printing process," Amarkhail said. "These materials will be dispatched to the provinces, according to plan, by January 15."
With less than 100 days remaining until the Presidential election, the official candidate campaign season is expected on January 3.
Reportedly, a public awareness campaign and the assignments of 1,590 election monitors will be the major projects of the IEC in the new year.