Afghanistan prepares for 2009 elections

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Afghan officials say preparations for the August 20 election are ahead of schedule. Thousands of ballots have been packaged and are ready to be distributed.

Staff from the Independent Election Commission are packing ballot boxes and bundles of papers.

Although no recent opinion polls are available, the incumbent president, Hamid Karzai, is widely assumed to be the front-runner.

Hundreds of Afghanistan's seven thousand polling centers may not open in the violent south and east. Those closures could cost Karzai large numbers of votes among his fellow ethnic Pashtuns.

Elsewhere, more than three thousand donkeys will deliver ballots to remote polling sites. Ballot papers identify candidates by a symbol because 70 percent of Afghans cannot read.

10 thousand extra foreign troops will be on patrol.