Kabul: Scattered rocket attacks and Taliban intimidation suppressed turnout in Afghanistan’s presidential election Thursday. But enough voters cast ballots that Afghan officials said they had thwarted efforts by the insurgents to derail the vote.
Afghan police officers dragged a body down the stairs of a bank on Wednesday after an attack in which three gunmen were killed. More Photos »
The election is the second in the nearly eight years since an American-led invasion ousted the Taliban, but the security situation in the country has deteriorated so sharply, and the credibility of the Afghan leadership has sunk so low, that the ability of the government to hold the election at all was in doubt.
American officials were quick to declare the poll a success — worth the expanding commitment of troops and money to an increasingly unpopular and corruption-plagued government.
But it was still too soon to say how many Afghans actually cast ballots, leaving questions about whether the low turnout would affect the legitimacy of the vote, skew the results, and resolve multiple claims of fraud.
Early accounts put the total far below the 70 percent who cast votes in the 2004 election.
In some parts of the heavily embattled south, only a trickle of men — and almost no women — defied Taliban threats to bomb polling stations and cut off fingers stained with the indelible ink used by election monitors. But Taliban attacks killed at least 30 people, and those who did vote wavered between resolution and terror.
“I am happy to use my vote, and I hope things will change and peace will knock at our door,” said Zainab, a 40-year-old voter in the southern city of Kandahar.
“Yes, I am scared!” Akhtar Mohmmad, who voted in the southern town of Khan Neshin, said, fearing his purple-stained finger would make him a target.
Slowed by insecurity across Afghanistan, declaring a winner could take at least two weeks or more, although Afghan officials said they would release preliminary results by Saturday.
It remained unclear how a low turnout would affect President Hamid Karzai’s chances of winning re-election in the first round of voting.
But early reports showed more voters in the north than in the volatile south — a pattern that would favor Mr. Karzai’s main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, and raise the chances of a runoff.
Especially in the south, the Taliban made good on their threats to try to disrupt the vote. And even in the places where insurgents failed to stop the voting, they did a good job of putting a scare into everyone who did vote.
In Garmser, a dusty town in the insurgency’s heartland in the southern province of Helmand, the signs of the Taliban’s strength were evident. The bazaar — which now, on the eve of Ramadan, would ordinarily be bustling — was mostly closed, just as the Taliban had demanded.
Inside the polling center, voters and election workers covered their faces whenever they were approached by someone with a camera. They said they were fearful of retribution.
At the only polling center in southern Helmand, set up in the forecourt of a mosque in Khan Neshin, election officials estimated that no more than 300 people voted all day — and not a single woman.
On Tuesday, the Taliban distributed a warning to surrounding villages.
“If we see anyone on the street or outside your house from today until Friday noon, you will be punished severely,” it said.
In Kandahar, witnesses said, the Taliban fired nine rockets near polling stations and hanged two people who had ink-stained fingers.
At a news conference at the presidential palace, Mr. Karzai thanked those who braved the Taliban threats, saying there had been 73 attacks in 15 provinces. Nevertheless, 94 percent of the polling centers opened, election officials said.
“I am very grateful to our people, who tolerated the suicide attacks, rockets attacks, and bomb attacks,” Mr. Karzai told journalists.
“Let’s see what the turnout was.” he said. “They came out and voted. That’s good, that’s good.”
Ballot counting started immediately at polling stations after voting closed at 5 p.m. But United Nations officials, who were assisting in the process, said official returns could take up to a month if complaints of fraud or irregularities needed to be adjudicated.
Mr. Abdullah, a former foreign minister, said his supporters would lodge complaints of fraud, in particular from the southern province of Kandahar. He called the low turnout in Kabul “unsatisfactory,” but also said the early returns were “hopeful” and offered his own praise.
First Published: Friday, August 21, 2009, 09:41