By Golnar Motevalli
KABUL, July 25 (Reuters) - U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke said on Saturday he was sure voting in next month's presidential election would go ahead in Afghanistan's most dangerous areas, although "complex challenges" remained.
Afghanistan's second direct vote for president will be staged on Aug. 20, with incumbent Hamid Karzai a clear front-runner ahead of a field of 38 challengers. The election is being played out against a backdrop of increased violence across the country.
Holbrooke has been in Afghanistan since Thursday and visited Kandahar and Helmand provinces, Taliban strongholds in the south.
With Afghanistan and Pakistan at the centre of President Barack Obama's foreign policy agenda, thousands of U.S. Marines and British troops launched major offensives against the Taliban in Helmand earlier this month.
"There will be voting in the south, that I can assure you," Holbrooke told a news conference in Kabul.
"They have extended registration in Helmand and Kandahar and other areas and as the security forces have moved forward in Helmand ... (voter) registration has followed," he said.
Before the Helmand operations violence across Afghanistan had already reached its worst levels since the Taliban's 2001 ouster.
Islamist militants have since stepped up attacks across the country, with U.S. and British troops and Afghan civilians bearing the brunt of the backlash.
"UNPRECEDENTED" DIFFICULTIES
Concerns about poor security, particularly in the south, voter registration fraud and fair campaigning by the lengthy list of candidates have threatened to overshadow the poll.
An unflattering International Crisis Group report last month warned that poor security and failure to capitalise on gains made since the last election in 2004 meant widespread fraud was possible in the voting.
Western donors, particularly Washington, are footing the $223 million bill for the election.
"Nobody's going to back down in the face of this intimidation," Holbrooke said of the insurgency, describing the difficulties faced by Afghans as "unprecedented".
"What do you want the Afghan people to do? To abandon the election because of some threats from a small minority of Taliban? Impossible. You hold the best election you can under the circumstances ... it isn't going to be perfect."
Holbrooke, who visited an Independent Election Commission data centre in Kabul, said he was most concerned about women being able to get access to polling stations and vote.
"This election faces many complex challenges ... How we make sure women can vote, which requires women at polls as poll watchers, as people inspecting, and so on," he said.
Women have long been under-represented in politics and public life in conservative Afghanistan, a devoutly Muslim country.
Holbrooke, appointed by Obama as special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan as part of a new regional strategy, reiterated Washington's neutral stance in the election despite its past support for Karzai.
Karzai came to power in 2001 after U.S.-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban and then won Afghanistan's first presidential vote three years later.
"We don't support any candidate, we don't oppose any candidate, we support democracy in Afghanistan," Holbrooke said.
(Editing by Paul Tait)
Men and boys collect water to take to their villages from a roadside well in Larkana, located in Pakistan's Sindh Province July 26, 2009. REUTERS/Nadeem Soomro (PAKISTAN ENVIRONMENT SOCIETY ANIMALS) ...
