In less than 48 hours, more than 12 million illegible voters will cast their ballots for the first time in almost 30 years to elect the candidates of their choice for the new Parliament and provincial councils.

I am confident that despite threats and intimidations in some parts of the country to disrupt elections, polls will open on Sunday at 6 am across Afghanistan, and millions of men and women will once again, in a demonstration of unity and civic duty, endorse the process that began almost four years ago to put the country on a democratic path.

On September 18, more than 12 million eligible voters – nearly half of them women – will cast ballots in nationwide Parliamentary and Provincial Council elections in Afghanistan. Omar Samad, the Ambassador of Afghanistan to Canada says, “following successful Presidential Elections held in October 2004, Afghanistan is once again on the threshold of another historic moment in its transition towards long-term stability, reconstruction and democracy.”