Two killed as Afghan polls open

At least two people have been killed in the first hours of polling in Afghanistan’s parliamentary election, officials said.

Rockets struck major cities throughout the country – the first one slamming into the capital before dawn, followed in the next few hours by a series of rockets in eastern Ghazni, Gardez and Jalalabad cities, as well as Kandahar in the south and old Baghlan in the north. The Baghlan rocket killed two civilians, said police spokesman Kamen Khan.

Blasts at polling centres in Jalalabad, Kabul and eastern Khost province delayed or interrupted voting, but did not result in casualties.

The Taliban managed to block at least a couple of stations from opening.

President Hamid Karzai cast his vote at a high school in the capital.

He urged citizens not to accept money from people trying to influence their vote and instead to cast their ballots for their preferred candidates.

“In every election, we do hope there will be a high voter turnout, that nobody will be deterred by security incidents, which I’m sure there will be some,” he said.

The election will “take the country many steps forward to a better future,” Karzai added.

Questions about fraud-prevention measures started to arise within a few hours of the polls opening.

Mohammad Hawaid, representative of an election candidate at one of the polling stations, complained that the ink that is applied on fingers of voters to prevent them from casting their ballots multiple times, is not working.

“It can be wiped off,” Hawaid said. “This is a major irregularity.” The ink is supposed to last at least 72 hours and be resistant to bleach – reappearing within a few minutes.

In Jalalabad, observers said poll workers were letting people vote with faked registration cards.

“The women coming here have so many cards that don’t have the stamp and are not real cards but still they are voting,” said Nazreen, a monitor for the Afghan Free and Fair Election Foundation, which has dispatched observers throughout the country.

Fake voter cards flooded into Afghanistan ahead of the poll, but election officials had promised that poll workers were trained on how to spot them and would not let ineligible voters cast ballots.

In Kandahar, a Taliban stronghold in the south, voters ventured out of their homes and headed to the polls in small groups, despite the rocket attack and several blasts across Kandahar city. One of the bombs targeted the convoy of Gov. Tooryalai Wesa as it was driving between voting centres, said police officer Abdul Manan. No one was injured.

Wesa still urged Kandaharis to come out and vote.

“The situation is under control,” Wesa said. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. The enemy wants the election to fail, so if you want the insurgents out of your land, you’ll have to come out and vote.”

Nato said today that coalition forces have conducted 12 operations in seven Afghan provinces in the past week against insurgents planning to disrupt the vote. Three insurgents were killed and several captured, the military alliance said.

About 2,500 candidates are vying for 249 seats in the parliament, and how many Afghans ignore the intimidation campaign and turn out at the polls will be one measure of whether the vote is considered a success.

In Nangarhar’s troubled Surkh Rud district, the Taliban blocked two voting centres from opening, said a resident. Taliban were patrolling to prevent residents from going elsewhere to vote, he said.

At a primary school in Kabul, doors opened on time and a group of 15 or 20 men who had been lined up outside filed in to cast ballots.

Mohammad Husman, a 50-year-old government worker, was at the head of the line.

“I came here because I want prosperity for Afghanistan, stability for Afghanistan,” Husman said. “I’m worried about security and fraud. I hope my vote goes to the person I picked to vote for.”