KABUL - Three candidates for Afghanistan's presidential vote have been barred for flouting candidacy requirements such a ban on links to illegal armed groups, an elections vetting commission announced this week.
Afghanistan's Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) chairman Grant Kippen refused to name the three, saying they would be identified when the final lists of candidates for the August 20 polls are published on Friday.
Forty-two men and two women signed up last month to run for president, including the incumbent Hamid Karzai who is going for a second term. One later dropped out of the race.
Fifty-four of 3,324 candidates for provincial council elections also being held on August 20 have also been excluded, Kippen told reporters.
The ECC received 302 challenges against the candidates, 50 of them directed at those in the presidential poll, he said.
"After investigations and adjudication of those valid challenges, the ECC has decided that a total of 57 people do not meet the qualification or requirements for candidacy," Kippen said.
"Of those, three individuals had submitted candidacy for presidential elections and the remainder are standing for provincial councils."
In 55 of the cases, the would-be candidates were affiliated to armed factions, Kippen said. Another had dual citizenship and the other had a criminal conviction, he said.
"These names will not appear in the final list of the candidates," he said.
The presidential election is only the second in Afghanistan's turbulent history. Karzai is perhaps the strongest candidate, despite complaints that he has failed to stem a Taliban-led insurgency or corruption.
His main challengers are his former finance minister Ashraf Ghani and his former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.
Kippen said some of the complaints had been directed towards Karzai but he would not give details.
"We have some challenges with respect to the president but I think we will wait until the decision comes out (on Friday) for you to see what those specific challenges are about," he said.
The largely internationally-funded election is a test of US-led efforts to install democracy in destitute Afghanistan, which has a history of wars, coups and political assassinations.
But insurgency-linked violence has surged in recent weeks and there are concerns that the violence or fears of attack could keep Afghans from voting, especially in militant hotspots in the south and east.
Police in the southern province of Zabul said Tuesday that security forces had killed more than 40 Taliban militants in a week-long operation to stabilise the area ahead of the elections.
Afghanistan's international allies have pledged thousands of extra security forces to help protect polling day and troops have for weeks been conducting operations to clear out insurgents.
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