KABUL, Sept 18: Taliban fighters failed on Sunday to sabotage Afghanistan’s first legislative elections in decades, with voters braving threats and turning out in force for a ballot President Hamid Karzai called a defining moment for the nation. Polls closed at 4pm, with no reports of major violence, despite a rash of more than two dozen harassing attacks by guerrillas across the troubled south and east.
There was an early scare in Kabul when two rockets hit a UN compound near an election centre shortly after polls opened, wounding an Afghan UN worker.
Earlier, a French soldier died in a mine blast and two Afghan policemen and three insurgents were killed in a clash near the Pakistani border while a Taliban fighter died in an overnight attack on a polling station before voting started.
However, the UN-Afghan election commission said voting had been remarkably peaceful and the government hailed it as a big victory over the insurgents.
“We have not had a single civilian casualty,” said Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal. “It went very well, beyond our expectations. After all their boasting, it’s a big failure for the Taliban.”
Voting was held at over 6,000 polling stations across the country from the deserts of the south to the towering Hindu Kush mountains of the northeast, one of the most difficult operations ever undertaken by international electoral workers.
Over 160,000 poll workers were employed for the vote involving more than 5,800 candidates, watched by more than 215,000 agents and observers. Donkeys and camels transported voting material to some remote districts.
About 12.5 million Afghans registered in the elections to a lower house of parliament and provincial councils, the first legislative poll since 1969, and enthusiasm was high.
“I’m so happy, I couldn’t sleep last night and was watching the clock to come out to vote,” said Qari Salahuddin, 21, at a polling station in the eastern city of Jalalabad.
In the 249-seat national assembly, 68 seats are reserved for women and election officials said there appeared to have been a high turnout of women in some conservative Muslim areas where their participation had been in doubt.
“I am so happy, so happy,” said Khatereh Mushafiq, 18, her black veil decorated with white flowers pulled back from her beaming face as she went to vote at a girl’s school in the city of Kandahar, the heartland of Taliban support.
“We are also now taking part in the government and in society. People must take part, people must have a say.”
FEWER VOTERS: Chief electoral officer Peter Erben said he believed turnout had been high although independent election observers said it appeared fewer had voted than in last year’s presidential elections, which saw a 70 per cent turnout.
“I see an extremely healthy election taking place around Afghanistan,” Mr Erben said, adding that any impression of a low turnout could be misleading as there were more polling stations than last year.
“Where we have had problems the security forces have acted promptly and gone to resolve it,” he said.
A huge security operation was mounted to protect the $159 million UN-organised vote, involving 100,000 troops, about 20,000 from a US-led force and 10,000 Nato-led peacekeepers.
The elections were part of an international plan to restore democracy after US-led forces overthrew the Taliban in 2001, and followed presidential polls won by Karzai last year.
Karzai called Sunday a historic day.
“(It) is the day of self-determination for the Afghan people,” he told reporters after voting at a heavily guarded state guesthouse. “That is why we are making history after 30 years of wars, interventions, occupations and misery.”
A successful poll will be a boost for the US administration, allowing it to portray Afghanistan as a success to set against the gloom from Iraq and Hurricane Katrina.
Full provisional results will not be available until early October.—Reuters
KABUL, Sept 18: Taliban fighters failed on Sunday to sabotage Afghanistan’s first legislative elections in decades, with voters braving threats and turning out in force for a ballot President Hamid Karzai called a defining moment for the nation. Polls closed at 4pm, with no reports of major violence, despite a rash of more than two dozen harassing attacks by guerrillas across the troubled south and east.
