KABUL: Organizing the first presidential election in Afghanistan, a country largely without power, roads or literacy, has required a leap of imagination that has encompassed everything from donkeys to satellite phones.

"Take all the roads out of France, remove the phone network, and the plumbing, add in 80 per cent illiteracy, and you get a picture of what we are dealing with," said David Avery, chief of operations for joint Afghan-UN electoral commission.

In fact, Afghanistan is the size of France, Belgium and Switzerland combined, and much of the country is mountainous and remote and threatened by political violence. And the electorate has little idea of what is at stake in the historic October 9 polls. "It is much more than an election. Even things as simple as translating words like democracy: there is even a dispute over that," said Silvana Puizana, head of civic and voter education for Afghanistan's electoral commission Joint Electoral Management Body.

From the collection of millions of voter registration cards to how people will mark the ballot papers - every little detail must be thought out. For instance "you are not expecting people to have pens," to mark their ballot papers so millions of pens had to be ordered, Puizana said.

The commission also had to make elaborate arrangements in order to make sure that people could get to polling stations. Rather than attach voters to particular districts voters will be allowed to turn up at any polling station in order to make it easier for people to cast their ballots.

Preventing people voting several times has been another headache. Already more than the estimated 9.8 million eligible voters the United Nations thought were in the country have registered to vote.

Voter registration numbers now stand at more than 10.5 million, according to UN numbers from August 21. The ballot paper was also carefully thought out. To compensate for illiteracy, the photographs of the 18 candidates are printed at the side of each square to be marked. -AFP