The Hindu : Front Page : Afghanistan goes to polls

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Oct 10, 2004

Front Page

Front Page

Afghanistan goes to polls

SEEKING A FUTURE: A line-up of women before a polling station in Kabul on Saturday. Across Afghanistan voters went to the polls in the country's first-ever direct presidential elections. — AP

KABUL, OCT. 10. Afghanistan's first-ever direct Presidential election began Saturday, with people across this ethnically diverse land casting the first ballots in an improbable experiment with democracy.

After 25 years of near constant war — and under a Taliban threat of ruinous violence — voters descended on bombed-out schools, blue-domed mosques, and bullet-pocked hospitals to choose their leader for the first time in their history.

The Interim leader, Hamid Karzai, is widely expected to win the vote against 15 rivals, among them warlords, royalists and even an Islamic poet. But the size of the field could deny Mr. Karzai the outright majority needed to avert a run-off.

A 19-year-old Afghan refugee in Pakistan became the election's first voter early Saturday, casting a ballot in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

"I cannot explain my feelings, just how happy I am," said Moqadasa Sidiqi, a science student whose family escaped Kabul in 1992 during the Afghan civil war. "I would never have thought I would be able to vote in this election."

Some 7,50,000 Afghan refugees registered to vote in Pakistan, and another 4 lakh to 6 lakh were eligible in Iran. Initial results were not expected until late Sunday or early Monday, but anything approaching a full count could take as much as two weeks.

While the Taliban threat of an overwhelming attack had not materialised by early Saturday, there were plenty of signs the rebel group was trying. On Friday, a bomb-sniffing dog in southern Kandahar discovered a fuel-truck rigged with anti-tank mines and laden with gasoline. Election officials arrested three Pakistanis and said they planned to detonate the truck in the centre of the city on polling day. "This would have caused hundreds of deaths ... and the electoral process would have been derailed in the area,'' said Col. Ishaq Paiman, the Defence Ministry deputy spokesman.

Respect people's will

Mr. Karzai criticised a decision by rival candidates to boycott the election and said they must respect the will of the people. "Just because 15 people have said `no', we can't deny the votes of millions," he told a news conference after all his rivals announced a boycott because of irregularities.

``Its too late in the day for a boycott. Millions have voted in the rain, the snow and the dust storm and we should respect their decision," he said. — AP

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