Campaigning has only been possible within the relatively safe confines of the provincial capital but impossible in the other six districts. One of the 124 council candidates was also recently murdered by the Taliban.

The chief of Kunduz's election commission, the civil engineer Mohammad Aman, confirmed that all logistical arrangements for the election were in place but expressed deep concerns about potential violence.

'I don't know if election day will be a good day,' he said. 'The only thing we are worried about is the security situation on that day.'

While the voting locations themselves are to be protected by Afghan police, Afghan soldiers are to provide a second security cordon and foreign troops a third.

Five police officers are to man each of the 216 voting locations across the province, but that was too few, Aman said.

To prevent individuals from casting multiple ballots, each voter will have one of their fingernails marked with ink.

But the Taliban has threatened to cut off the fingers of anyone caught with a marked nail.

In a province where some districts are under Taliban control, 'nobody there will go to vote if the government cannot deploy more security forces in these areas', Aman warned.

The Taliban is causing fear to spread across the province. An education official in the Char Darah district, Abdul Bari Haidari, said half of the schoolgirls there are going to classes after recent Taliban threats.

German and Afghan troops recently concluded their largest offensive in the district against the insurgents, but 'the operation was ineffective', Haidari said.

'We are living in fear that the Taliban might return for good,' he said. 'We are feeling that the Taliban are coming back.'

Klein, in the meantime, said he hoped the situation would 'stabilise after the presidential election'. But this is far from certain.

If none of the presidential candidates wins an absolute majority in Thursday's voting, a runoff would be held at the beginning of October, which the Taliban most likely would try to disrupt. But nobody in Kunduz wants to think that far into the future at this point.