Presidential election to be held on April 4, 2019

The presidential and provincial council elections elections will be conducted on April 4, 2019, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) announced on Tuesday.
IEC Deputy Spokesman Abdul Aziz Ibrahimi told Pajhwok Afghan News that a meeting of political parties, civil society activists and IEC members was held on Tuesday to discuss the issue of election date announcement.
He said it was agreed in the meeting that next presidential election will be conducted in April 2019.
Ibrahimi said the presidential election will be conducted next spring and the commission would formally announce the date for presidential and provincial council polls on Wednesday.
But a reliable source from IEC that was present in the meeting said the huddle decided to conduct presidential election on April 4.
This comes after National Unity Government (NUG) leaders called on the IEC a week ago to announce the date for the 2019 presidential election “as soon as possible”.
According to a statement issued by the President’s Office at the time, President Ashraf Ghani met with IEC members, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) Tadamichi Yamamoto, and several ambassadors of countries supporting the election process.
“At the meeting the leadership of the NUG asked the IEC to reassure the people about the (voter) registration process and provide facilities for political parties, civil society organizations and international observers to monitor the election process,” the statement read.
“President Ghani made it clear at the meeting that any outside influence, by anyone, including government employees, in the election process will be considered a crime and action will be taken against the violators” read the statement.
CEO Abdullah Abdullah also said at last week’s Council of Ministers meeting that the IEC has been asked to announce the date for next year’s polls. He said “there should be no uncertainty over the will of the NUG in regard to holding elections.”
“This is the demand of the people that they have a transparent (election),” Abdullah said.