Date Posted: Monday, September 19, 2005

Ballots from Sunday's Aghan vote were being gathered Monday for the initiation of counting on Tuesday.

KABUL Sep 19 (MASNET & News Agencies) - As ballots were being sent to vote-counting centers across the country, early estimates showed a turnout of just over 50 percent in Afghanistan's first parliamentary polls in more than three decades, below that of last year's presidential vote.

Militants from the ousted Taliban had warned voters to stay away from Sunday's poll, seen as a crucial step in the war-shattered country's progress towards democracy, but failed to carry out any major attacks, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

With closing reports in from around 35 percent of polling stations, "the turnout appears to be just over 50 percent", or six million votes, chief electoral officer Peter Erben told a news conference on Monday.

This was well below the turnout of 67 percent, or 7.3 million, at the October 2004 presidential election won by Hamid Karzai. The figure was 76 percent, including Afghans living outside the country, but they did not vote this year.

"We consider the turnout this year satisfactory," said Erben. "This number could change as the rest of our reports come in."

Some 12.4 million Afghans were registered to vote, up from 10 million for the presidential election, reports the Associated Press (AP).

He said the initial turnout compared well with elections elsewhere in the world, particularly in post-conflict countries like Afghanistan.

"In Bosnia in 2002 there were 55 percent, in the parliamentary elections in Colombia 42 percent, India 59 percent, Switzerland 42 percent," Erben told reporters.

The fact there were many more candidates - about 5,800 - meant the choice was less tangible for voters than it had been in the presidential election, he said.

Analysts said a range of factors, including a complex electoral system, disappointment with a lack of progress since the last election and fall of the Taliban in 2001, coupled with the fear of attacks, had caused the drop in numbers.

The main group of independent observers, Free and Fair Elections in Afghanistan, said its initial estimates also found just 50 percent of registered voters took part in the election.

The Afghan media group Kilid separately gave the same figure.

The elections for the lower house of the national assembly and 34 provincial councils were Afghanistan's first since 1969, and were viewed as a crucial step in its progress towards democracy after decades of bloodshed.

With candidates running as independents, the new parliament is expected to be fragmented. Members will focus on local agendas, but prominent political figures, including some Karzai opponents, are expected to win seats, reports Reuters news agency.

The Taliban militia, overthrown in a U.S.-led campaign for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks on the United States by his al-Qaeda movement, at first vowed to derail preparations for the vote, but said they would not attack polling booths on election day.

Days before the election, though, a Taliban spokesman warned voters to boycott the poll or face possible attacks.

There were several clashes and attacks across the country on polling days, with a suicide bombing thwarted in the eastern province of Khost, but voting was largely uninterrupted.

Nine people were killed in militant attacks on Saturday and Sunday, including a French commando, but only three voters were injured in violence specifically linked to the election.

Seven candidates were also killed ahead of the polls, some of them by Taliban insurgents.

Erben said vote counting was due to start on Tuesday with results not expected for more than two weeks.

Staff began to collect the 120,000 ballot boxes from 6,300 voting centers immediately after the polls closed on Sunday and worked overnight to take them to counting centers, he said.

Once final results are posted, it will likely take time to figure out who has the power in the 249-seat Wolesi Jirga, or parliament. But there are fears it could be split along the same ethnic and tribal lines that fueled years of war as 1970s coups led to a decade-long Soviet occupation followed by devastating civil war and the Taliban takeover in the 1990s, reports the AP.

Late Sunday, a truck transporting ballot boxes in the eastern province of Nangarhar was badly damaged by a roadside bomb, but no one was injured and the votes were not affected, police said.

Karzai praised voters - who cast ballots in schools, mosques and even desert tents - for coming out "in spite of the terrorism, in spite of the threats."

"After 30 years of wars, interventions, occupations and misery, today Afghanistan is moving forward, making an economy, making political institutions," he said as he cast his ballot.

A team of five of NATO observers said it saw "no serious irregularities" during the vote and was impressed by the level of participation.

Rights activists viewed the election as a big step for women in this traditionally male-dominated society. The 5,800 candidates for parliament and the provincial assemblies included 582 women, and a quarter of legislative seats are reserved for women, reports the AP.

"I saw women without burqas on, they were smiling, they were very happy and they were not hiding their happiness," Rasa Jukneviciene from Lithuania said.

"The members of the delegation caution, however, that the elections are only a first step and that much must be done to build sustainable democratic institutions," the delegation said in a statement.

World leaders praised the vote, which President George W. Bush said was "a major step forward in Afghanistan's development as a democratic state governed by the rule of law".

"Braving deadly attacks and threats of violence, Afghans voted in large numbers," he said in a message of congratulations.

Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair said, "Once again the Afghan people have shown how determined they are to build a better future for their country."

"The U.K. will continue to work in their support," he said.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the election showed "the clear determination of the Afghan people to pursue the peaceful and democratic development of their nation."

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said it was another milestone on the country's road to recovery and peace, reports the AP.

Pakistan, which deployed a record number of troops along its border with Afghanistan to thwart Pakistani-based militants from disrupting the election, said it was pleased the polls were "held largely peacefully".

"Four years ago, the Taliban were here and women were being stoned to death ... and now you have women running polling centers and women voting," said U.S. Ambassador Ronald Neumann, calling the elections a "great success."

Neumann said the elections - the final stage of a roadmap to democracy in Afghanistan laid out in Germany in 2001 - did not mean the end of U.S. and international commitment to the country.