Candidates begin campaign for Afghan parliament elections

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Candidates running in Afghanistan's parliamentary elections kicked off campaigning on Friday ahead of the country's balloting next month.

The vote for the lower house of parliament is scheduled for Oct. 20, though it's unclear if voting will take place in areas held by the Taliban.

The rival political parties of President Ashraf Ghani and his Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah are expected to be among the front-runners in the vote.

The election comes amid a vicious campaign by the Taliban and the Islamic State group, which have been staging near-daily attacks across the country.

Beside security challenges, a number of political parties and opposition groups expressed concern over the transparency of the election, leading to demands that a biometrics system be used to register voters — a first in Afghanistan's history.

The Independent Election Commission said Friday they have so far received 4,400 out of a total of 22,000 sets of biometric identification systems. The IEC said the remaining equipment would be delivered in the coming days.

Aziz Ibrahimi, the commission's spokesman, said 2,565 candidates are battling for the 249 seats in the chamber. Ibrahimi said there're also 417 women among the candidates.

The capital, Kabul, and other cities and towns across Afghanistan awoke Friday to colorful posters of candidates plastered on billboards and walls. On election day, voters will be able to cast ballots at 21,011 polling stations.

The Afghan parliament includes both a lower and an upper house, but only the members for the lower house are directly elected by the people. The upper house consists of a mixture of parliamentarians chosen from local councils and those appointed by the president, as well as members elected in district elections.