Afghan officials upbeat on voting station security

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan officials painted a surprisingly optimistic pre-poll picture Monday, saying far fewer voting stations for this week's presidential election would be closed because of security fears than had been expected.

Afghans go to the polls Thursday but, with violence at its worst levels since the Taliban were toppled in 2001 and insurgents vowing to disrupt the election, many fear poor security will have a serious impact on the ballot's outcome.

Lack of security, especially in the south, has raised fears of a poor voter turnout in those areas, President Hamid Karzai's traditional powerbase among his ethnic Pashtun followers.

Poor turnout raises the risk that Karzai might not be able to pass the 50 percent mark he needs to secure the election in the first round, leading to a second round run-off.

That would most likely be against his main rival and former foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah.

Zekria Barakzai, deputy chief of the government-appointed Independent Election Commission (IEC), said 442 polling stations would have to remain closed, significantly fewer than IEC officials had previously feared.

Election officials had earlier said about 10 percent of the 7,000 voting stations might be unable to open.

"We will try our best to open more but there is a possibility that on election day we will have to open less," said Barakzai.

"Because the security situation is volatile, we don't know what will happen the next day and the next day," he told Reuters.

Around 6,500 polling stations are planned to be open on Thursday, some 300 more than in the last presidential election in 2005, Barakzai said. In 2005, around 100 polling stations were closed because of poor security, he said.

As expected, most of the voting stations that will not open are in southern Helmand, the heartland of the insurgency. Some 115 stations will likely be closed in Helmand.

Another 85 voting stations will be closed in Wardak and Ghazni provinces just south of Kabul.

Violence in Afghanistan has spiralled this year with U.S. and British forces launching major offensives in the south in an attempt to secure insurgent-held areas ahead of the poll. The commander of U.S. and NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal, this month said insurgents had advanced out of traditional strongholds in the south and east, gaining momentum as they moved into the north and west.

(Editing by Paul Tait)