The top Afghan National Army (ANA) commanders on Monday met with President Hamid Karzai to discuss security for the upcoming elections. Reportedly, they assured Karzai of their commitment to provide security for all polling centers, and assured that they would do their best to make sure centers currently under threat are open on election day.
Meanwhile, the Afghan Minister of Defense General Bismillah Khan Mohammadi said that providing security for the election is one of his ministry's top priorities.
"Security of the election is one of our main and basic duties and we are preparing ourselves now," he said.
The commander of the 201 Silab Military Corps, Mohammad Zaman Waziri, said "we are back in control of areas where insurgents were leading and centers have reopened."
"We are entirely ready and have plans to remove the remaining threats," he added.
Based on the most recent available data, 498 voting centers are said to face high security threats.
"We oversee 506 voting centers of which 432 centers are safe and protected," said Abdul Hamid, the commander of the 205 Military Corps. "12 centers face average threats and 60 more centers face high threats, but their problems will be solved."
With less than three months remaining until election day, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) has asked security officials to provide an updated nationwide assessment of security conditions facing all polling centers. As of now, that assessment is a day late.
One of the key issues the IEC and election advocate organizations have highlighted heading into the April vote is security, and how it could affect turnout and transparency.
The IEC referred a list of at least 7,000 polling stations to security officials roughly 14 months ago.
On Sunday, officials of the IEC said that the delayed presentation of updated election security reports from security officials could create problems for the elections process.
Ministry of Interior (MoI) spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said that the security assessment would be forwarded on to the IEC this week.
Providing security for the elections will be a major test for the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), as they assume greater responsibility from foreign forces who plan to leave Afghanistan by December with the end of the NATO combat mission.
Security for the past two Presidential elections saw a significant amount of support, if not complete oversight, from coalition forces.