Afghanistan postpones next year’s presidential election ‘to fix technical problems’

Afghanistan’s election commission has said the presidential vote scheduled for April will be postponed for several months. The move would allow time to fix technical problems that surfaced during October’s parliamentary elections. Abdul Aziz Ibrahimi, deputy spokesman for the Independent Election Commission, said Wednesday that more time is needed to train staff on a biometric identification system designed to reduce fraud. Additional verification of voter lists also requires more time, he said. Parliamentary elections were fraught with delays after countless registered voters could not find their names on voter lists. Scores of challenges to the parliamentary election results have surfaced. No new date for presidential polls has been set.