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Voters in Afghanistan will head to the polls on Wednesday to determine who will be the next president of the war-torn, and foreign occupied country. According to a recent U.S. government funded poll, incumbent Hamid Karzai is the leading candidate although without the necessary support needed to avoid a run-off election. The survey showed the President likely to receive 36 percent of the vote while 20 percent of those polled expressed support for his main rival Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. As the election draws nearer, reports of rampant fraud and vote-buying have surfaced that could threaten the integrity of the process. Afghanistan currently does not have an official electoral register and the Afghan Free and Fair Elections Foundation has said it is only able to deploy observers in seventy percent of all polling stations throughout the country. The sale of fraudulent voter registration cards and the suspiciously high number of women registered in the southern regions of Afghanistan are just some of the problems facing the legitimacy of the election. The British Times newspaper has even reported that tribal elders and other witnesses are alleging that vote card collections are being organized in the south by members of the President’s family and other allies. Meanwhile, the Taliban has continued to threaten to disrupt the election process.

GUESTS: Sam Zia-Zarifi, Asia-Pacific director for Amnesty International, Ann Jones, Author of “Kabul in Winter: Life Without Peace in Afghanistan