The best thing that can be said about Afghanistan’s parliamentary election Saturday was that it took place at all.
Beyond that, the eagerly awaited and long-postponed poll — the first held without massive foreign assistance and supervision since the end of Taliban rule in 2001 — was an exercise in chaos, marred by violence.
At about 5 p.m., Kabul police said, a suicide bomber attempted to enter a polling station on the northern outskirts of the capital, then detonated when police tried to stop him, killing 10 civilian voters and five policemen.
Elsewhere in the capital, a loud explosion near a large apartment complex did little damage but sent hundreds of panicked voters running.
The Taliban, who vowed to disrupt the vote, claimed to have staged 164 attacks nationwide on Saturday. In the days leading up to the poll, insurgents assassinated a top security official in Kandahar province, leading authorities to postpone the election there for one week at least. In other provinces, 10 candidates were killed during the campaign.
In these elections, voters were choosing among more than 2,500 candidates running for 250 seats in the lower house of parliament.
Afghan women voted at separate sites. (Jawad Jalali/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
In the capital and across the country, polls opened hours late and some not at all. People waited in lines all morning and gave up. Those who managed to cast their votes described scenes of frenzied confusion and disorganization, with ballot boxes missing, names recorded wrong and poll workers unable to make the newly installed biometric ID system work.
“It’s a mess in there,” said a gray-haired laborer named Rahmatullah Ahmadzadi as he strode angrily out of a West Kabul polling station around 10 a.m. His voice shook as he held up his index finger dipped in purple ink. “There are 5,000 people registered at this spot, and only 100 have gotten to vote.”
Across the capital Saturday, streets were blocked off and armed security forces were stationed at many intersections and outside every polling place. There was almost no traffic, and most people walked to schools or mosques in their neighborhoods to vote.
At mid-morning, President Ashraf Ghani voted at a high school under tight security with his wife, Rula, at his side. He later declared, “Today, we proved together we will uphold democracy, casting ballots without fear.”
Many voters expressed strong enthusiasm for the election, which they described as a chance to bring fresh faces and new ideas to the political arena. First-time voters seemed especially excited, despite encountering the same frustrations as others when they attempted to vote.
Some polling stations had difficulty using biometric ID equipment. (Omar Sobhani/Reuters)
“The lines are much too long, but I will not leave without voting,” said Abdul Ghafour, 43, a security guard who was waiting across the street from a long line of male voters that did not seem to move at all. Women voted at separate sites.
“Our country needs new people in power,” Ghafour added. “I have a candidate I like. He has a masters’ degree and speaks eight languages. It is worth the wait.”
But frustration mounted as the hours passed and the pace of vote processing did not increase. On social media and radio call-in shows, people in far-flung provinces complained of similar problems. In Herat, a man waited four hours to vote and poll workers could not find his name. In Kunar, a polling place ran out of indelible ink. In Khost, nobody could figure out how to use the biometric ID equipment.
In Qarabagh, a town north of Kabul, voters blocked the main highway in protest after election materials failed to arrive by midday and no one could cast a ballot.
One joke making the rounds on social media suggested that more people would be deprived of voting in so-called safe areas than in regions under Taliban control, where the danger was considered so high that hundreds of polling stations were shuttered in advance.
By late afternoon, dozens of polling stations had still not opened in Kabul, and election officials announced that voting in some areas would be extended several extra hours later into the evening and possibly continued into Sunday.
Combined with the one-week delay in Kandahar, this measure suggested that results would be announced much later, possibly more than one month from now.
By late afternoon, dozens of polling stations had still not opened in Kabul, and election officials announced that voting in some areas would be extended until 8 p.m. and possibly continued into Sunday. The officials said, however, that only 360 polling centers out of 4,900 had experienced major problems.
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Afghan elections delayed in Kandahar province after top officials assassinated
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