Karzai vows 'elections on time'

Around a third of Afghan provinces remain lawless

The Afghan Government says it is determined that the country's first full elections will go ahead in June as planned despite persistent lawlessness.

A spokesman for President Hamid Karzai was responding to unnamed US officials quoted as saying parliamentary elections were likely to be delayed.

The United Nations is running a voter registration drive, but considers much of the country too perilous to work in.

So far, under 900,000 of the country's estimated 10.5m voters have registered.

Logistical problem

Speaking to the New York Times newspaper, the unnamed Bush administration official said the presidential poll could go ahead in June, "or maybe July", if security improves.

No rivals have yet pledged to stand against Mr Karzai, who is seen as the easy favourite to win the presidency.

But the official said it was likely that the more logistically challenging task of organising parliamentary elections would have to be postponed, possibly until next year.

President Karzai is among only 8% of registered voters

Security problems continue to plague up to a third of the country, with more than 100 lives lost since the beginning of the year.

In addition, there are difficulties setting electoral district boundaries, organising political parties and selecting candidates for parliamentary elections.

A UN spokesman in Afghanistan acknowledged the difficulties on Sunday.

Manoel de Almeida e Silva said the situation in certain parts of the country was being reviewed "to determine what changes in plans can be undertaken to bring elections as close as possible to the original June date".

Speaking at a news briefing in Kabul, presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin also recognised the "massive logistical challenge" of holding elections.

Bush interests

But he insisted June was still the target date.

"Our position still is that the election as planned is our goal," he said, according to Reuters news agency.

"We are working towards meeting that goal."

The BBC correspondent in Kabul, Andrew North, says until now the US administration has itself insisted elections will go ahead on time.

He says some suspect this stance is motivated by President George Bush's own needs as he prepares to go before the American electorate in November.