The Times
Jerome Starkey in Kabul

The collapsible cardboard polling booths, picnic chairs and indelible ink in Afghanistan’s emergency election kits may make a second round possible but they will not necessarily make it fair.

All the materials for a run-off, including millions of new ballot papers, plastic seals and tamper-proof bags, began leaving Kabul this morning, packed into old Russian lorries and United Nations aircraft, destined for the 34 provincial capitals. Many will be loaded on to donkeys for the final leg of their journeys to the most remote parts of Afghanistan, deep in the Hindu Kush mountains, where the tracks are too narrow for cars.

If winter snows close the passes Nato helicopters are on standby to airlift the equipment into place for staff from the Independent Election Commission (IEC) to transform their flat-pack kits into polling stations. (Read more)