Dozens killed as Afghanistan votes

Around 3m people risked their lives to vote on first day, despite scores of militant attacks

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Problems plagued hundreds of Afghan polling centres yesterday in the shambolic legislative election’s second day of voting, fuelling criticism of organisers and eroding hopes for credible results after a ballot marred by deadly violence.

As voting restarted in more than 20 provinces, a tally of official casualty figures showed the number of civilians and security forces killed or wounded in poll-related violence on Saturday was nearly 300 — almost twice the figure released by the interior ministry.

The huge discrepancy adds to concerns about the lack of transparency and credibility of the long-delayed election that is seen as a dry run for next year’s presidential vote.

rounded-off number of civilians, security staff killed or wounded in poll-related violence

polling sites that were supposed to open but remain closed for security reasons

Voter rolls incomplete

At some of the 253 polling centres opened for voting yesterday, election workers still struggled to use biometric verification devices and voter rolls were “either incomplete or non-existent”, Electoral Complaints Commission spokesman Ali Reza Rohani told reporters.

Another 148 polling sites that were supposed to open remained closed for security reasons, the Independent Election Commission said.

The IEC’s chronic mishandling of the parliamentary election, which is the third since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, has all but dashed hopes it can organise the presidential ballot, scheduled for April.

“This does not bode well for next year,” Afghanistan Analysts Network co-director Thomas Ruttig said. “The IEC has clearly shown its lack of capacity to run acceptable and transparent elections, instead publishing doctored figures.”

A western official, who had monitored the months-long preparations, said they had no confidence left in the IEC.

“None at all,” they said on the condition of anonymity.

“With the current IEC leadership there are a lot of doubts that they would be able to handle the presidential election properly,” political analyst Haroun Mir said.

Initial IEC figures show around 3 million people risked their lives to vote on Saturday despite scores of militant attacks. Nearly 9 million voters registered for the polls, but many suspect a significant number of those were based on fake identification documents that fraudsters planned to use to stuff ballot boxes.