KABUL: Nearly 170 Afghans were killed or wounded in poll-related violence on Saturday, officials said, as the legislative election turned chaotic with many polling centres opening hours late — or not at all — due to technical glitches and lack of staff.

In the latest attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a Kabul polling centre, killing at least 15 people and wounding 20, taking the number of casualties across the Afghan capital to 19 dead and nearly 100 wounded, police said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, but the Taliban said earlier it had carried out more than 300 attacks on the “fake election” across the war-torn country.

Hundreds of people have been killed or wounded in the months before the polls.

The killing of a powerful police chief in the southern province of Kandahar on Thursday further eroded confidence in the ability of security forces to protect voters. Voting in Kandahar has been delayed by a week following the attack.

An Independent Election Commission (IEC) employee was killed and seven others were missing after the Taliban attacked a polling centre several kilometres from Kunduz city, destroying ballot boxes, provincial IEC director Mohammad Rasoul Omar said.

Eight explosions were recorded in the eastern province of Nangarhar, with two people killed and five wounded, the provincial governor’s spokesman said.

Initial figures showed about 1.5 million voters turned up at polling centres in 27 provinces, election organisers said — a fraction of the nearly nine million voters registered. Many voters waited hours for the doors to open.

Most polling sites opened late after teachers employed to handle the voting process failed to show up on time.

The election commission said they would extend voting until Sunday for 371 polling centres after hiccups with voter registration lists.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2018