Afghan Election: "In My Family of 45 People, I'm The Only One Who Voted"

The specter of the Taliban cast a long shadow over the country's long-awaited presidential and provincial council elections today, August 20, with very low voter turnout in the war-ravaged south of the country.

The Taliban and other opposition groups had conducted a very effective intimidation campaign over the past few weeks, threatening to maim and kill voters if they participated in what they described as "infidel" elections.

Voters were asked to dip their fingers into bottles of indelible ink, in order to prevent one person from voting more than once. The Taliban had publicly threatened that they would cut off any inked finger.

"In all of my family of 45 people, I am the only one who voted," said Matiullah, a resident of Ghazni province. "But now I am worried. I have ink on my finger and the Taliban may punish me."

But for many voters this was not an issue. While the ink is supposed to take days to wash off, multiple reports from various provinces suggested that people were able to clean their fingers with cloths, water, or a little spit.

"The ink was not standard," said Massoud Hassanzada, a journalist in Herat. "Some washed off very quickly."

Ghulam Ahmad, a 70-year-old Herati voter, held up his very clean finger. "It took five minutes to get it off," he said.

Another fraud-prevention mechanism was the hole-puncher: once a voter received a ballot, his voter registration card was punched to prevent him from using it to vote again.

But the hole-punchers purchased for the occasion did not seem up to the task. In some provinces, they dispensed with the idea altogether, in others election workers struggled to cut through the stiff plastic laminate with scissors.

It was never going to be a perfect vote. United Nations Special Representative Kai Eide recently referred to the Afghan poll as "the most complicated elections … anywhere in the world".

With the ballot taking place in a country in the midst of war, with little experience of democracy, deep ethnic divides and overwhelming corruption, the international community - which funded the vote as well as overseeing much of the electoral process - was very concerned over the fairness of the poll.

The concern proved to be well founded. Voter turnout ranged from high in the relatively stable north to extremely low in many parts of the war-ravaged south.

"We expected 4,200 people to vote at this center," said Nasir Ahmad, head of a polling station in the Chel-Metra district of Helmand province, speaking on the morning of the election. "But it's already 10.30, and we have only registered 83 people."

Even that was better than in many areas, where polling stations remained firmly closed because of Taliban threats. In parts of Wardak, Ghazni, Logar, and eastern Herat, as well as Helmand and Kandahar, residents had almost no possibility to cast their ballots.

"In Jalrez district, there have been rocket attacks, and everything is closed," said one resident of Wardak province. "In Sayedabad and Jighatu as well, there is fighting. Everyone is staying home."

Five rockets struck Wardak's provincial capital, Maidan Shahr, early in the day.

Rockets seemed to be the Taliban's weapon of choice for depressing turnout. In Kunduz, in the north, four rockets struck early in the morning, with two of them landing near a polling station. Kandahar suffered over 14 strikes, Helmand eight.

Due to a news blackout imposed by the Afghan government, details are sketchy, but it is estimated that at least two dozen people died in election-related violence.

Alleged voting irregularities have also marred the poll, ranging from accusations of inappropriate campaigning to claims of blatant fraud.