15 August 2004	Sunday	28 Jamadi-us-Saani 1425

PESHAWAR, Aug 14: Preparations are under way to start registration of Afghan refugees in Pakistan for the next presidential elections scheduled for October 10, sources said.

Afghan officials said that registration of refugee voters was likely to be started from next week for which a seven-member consultative body had been set up to ensure transparency in the voters registration.

Head of the Afghan Constitution Drafting Commission Zahir Khan Jabarkhel told Dawn here on Saturday that the NWFP and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) had been divided into four zones - Peshawar, Kohat, Mardan and Abbottabad - for the purpose.

He said that registration offices would be established in selected areas while mobile teams would visit camps and refugee hosting localities in the NWFP and Fata to register Afghans for the forthcoming presidential elections.

He said that huge manpower would be engaged in completing the process before the scheduled elections. "We are already late," Mr Jabarkhel said, adding that a tentative plan had been prepared to start registration from next week.

United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, which is looking after the overall election process, had handed over the task to International Organisation for Migration (IOM) to conduct registration of refugees.

The seven-member consultative body, comprising refugee elders and representatives of other organizations, would cooperate with the IOM and also monitor the registration process.

Officials said that apart from IOM, a German organization and various other Afghan NGOs, would also be involved in the exercise.

According to Afghanistan's constitution, all male and female Afghan citizens above the age of 18 would be eligible to use their right of franchise.

Male voters will have to produce their photographs, while female have been exempted from doing so. Registration centres would be established in schools and other community centres in the refugee hosting areas.

Afghan officials said that roughly 700,000 out of two million refugees living in camps and urban areas in Pakistan were likely to get registration as voters for the upcoming presidential elections.

Lists provided by the UNHCR and Commissionarate for Afghan Refugees suggested that about 75 per cent of the total refugee population were Pukhtoons, while the remaining belonged to small ethnic groups of Afghanistan.

An Afghan official said that they had identified two areas in Pakistan where they would face difficulties in conducting the exercise, one is Punjab where the refugee population was scattered and the other South Waziristan Agency where the military was conducting an operation against militants.

Islamabad had assured full cooperation to the Afghan government to smoothly complete the registration of refugees across the country while security would also be provided to the mobile teams during their visit, an official said.