Afghans in conservative Kandahar risk lives to vote in delayed poll
29 October, 2018
AFP KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP-Jiji) — Afghans risked their lives to vote in legislative elections in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, after the Taliban-claimed killing of a powerful police chief delayed the ballot by a week.
Turbaned men and burqa-clad women stood in long, segregated queues outside polling centers in the deeply conservative Kandahar provincial capital, which was blanketed with heavy security in anticipation of militant attacks.
More than half a million people — the vast majority of them men — were registered to vote in Kandahar Province where more than 100 candidates competed for 11 lower-house seats.
Organizers were under pressure to avoid the recent debacle that forced the Independent Election Commission (IEC) to extend the nationwide ballot by a day.
Problems with untested biometric verification devices, missing or incomplete voter rolls and absent election workers following Taliban threats to attack the ballot forced Afghans to wait hours outside polling stations, many of which opened late or not at all.
Similar issues were evident in Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban and a province notorious for ballot stuffing, with many polling sites in the city opening more than an hour late — despite assurances from IEC deputy spokeswoman Kobra Rezaei on Friday that “we are absolutely ready.”
Electoral Complaints Commission spokesman Ali Reza Rohani told reporters that preparations had been “better” in Kandahar compared to recent voting. But hiccups with biometric devices and voter lists persisted.
An AFP correspondent visited several polling centers in the city where election workers did not know how to use the biometric machines. At some sites the gadgets were not used at all.
Streets in the city were quieter than usual at the beginning of the Afghan working week, after authorities restricted the use of cars and motorbikes during voting hours.
“I have to vote for a better future for my country,” shopkeeper Abdul Abbas told AFP outside a polling center in the provincial capital. “I have defied all the threats of attacks and explosions to vote.”
Voting in the province bordering Pakistan was postponed following the Oct. 18 death of Gen. Abdul Raziq, an anti-Taliban strongman seen as a bulwark against the insurgency in the south, amid fears of violence flaring up.
Raziq was among three people killed in a brazen insider attack on a high-level security meeting in Kandahar city that was attended by Gen. Scott Miller, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan.
Miller escaped unhurt, but U.S. Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Smiley was among 13 people wounded in the shooting claimed by the Taliban.
It was hoped that the appointment of Tadeen Khan, a brother of Raziq and a member of the Afghan security forces, as acting provincial police chief would help keep a lid on polling day unrest.
As voting centers closed, there were no reports of violence.
On the eve of the ballot, Afghan airstrikes killed at least 56 Taliban militants in Kandahar’s Shah Wali Kot district, provincial police spokesman Zia Durrani told AFP.
IEC figures show around 4 million people voted in the parliamentary election that was held in 32 out of 34 provinces after months of chaotic preparations. That compares with nearly 9 million on the voter roll, but many suspect a significant number of those were based on fake identification documents that fraudsters planned to use.
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