BERLIN, Sept 18: Hundreds of Germans voted in their dramatic national election while striving to keep the peace during another historic poll thousands of kilometres away. Sunday was a day like no other, said Major Guenther Bender, speaking by telephone from the Hindukush mountains in northeastern Afghanistan.

“We are very impatient to know what is happening in Germany, but we are working also to ensure the Afghans can vote democratically and freely,” he told AFP.

At the Bundeswehr’s main camp at Kunduz, where 400 German soldiers are based, a big screen was set up between tents so troops could follow events back home.

Despite the 2.5-hour time difference, the encampment formed a kind of German electoral outpost in the Hindukush as the troops watched the televised commentary under a starry sky.

But for the German soldiers, the campaign had been one without official party launches, rallies or electoral gimmicks. No posters here, either, of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder or his conservative challenger Angela Merkel.

As for the other poll, the 1,700-strong Bundeswehr contingent in Kunduz and Kabul, as part of Nato’s International Security Assistance Force, tried to ensure Afghans could vote safely in their first free general election in 30 years.—AFP