03 October 2004	Sunday	17 Shaban 1425

ISLAMABAD, Oct 2: About 140,000 Afghans in Pakistan registered for voting in the Oct 9 Afghan presidential elections.

A press release issued by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) here on Saturday quoted its director of out of country registration and voting programme Peter Erben as saying that there was no untoward incident reported from anywhere during the first day of the registration process.

"On Friday, there were 1,657 registration stations operating in 620 locations in Balochistan, the NWFP and Islamabad," Mr Erben said.

He said that figures from 1,400 of these stations showed that 120,000 Afghans had registered so far. He said that the organization estimated that by the time they get figures from all 1,657 stations the figure for registered voters was likely to be "around 140,000 ... which is good for first day".

IOM said that a small number of polling stations were not opened. "This was mostly (because) a few Afghan communities would not allow women to participate in the operation," the IOM official said.

Mr Erben said that everything was being done to increase the level of women's participation in the registration process.

"On the first day, women constituted only 22 per cent of the registrants," Mr Erben said.

He hoped that more women would register on the second and third day and said: "However it is expected that the participation of women will be lower in Pakistan than in Afghanistan," Mr Erben said.

On Saturday, the press release said, IOM's women community mobilizes tried to encourage Afghan women to come forward.

Mr Erben said that the security provided by the government was excellent and that no untoward incident was reported.