Afghans vote despite raids

KABUL – Taliban fighters yesterday tried to sabotage Afghanistan’s first legislative election in decades, but voters still turned out for a ballot President Hamid Karzai said was a defining moment in the nation’s struggle to rebuild.

More than a dozen attacks were launched across the southeast and two rockets were fired into a UN compound near an election centre in Kabul shortly after polls opened. Only one rocket exploded, slightly wounding an Afghan worker, an election official said, and the joint Afghan-UN election commission said, on the whole, voting was remarkably peaceful.”I’m so happy, I couldn’t sleep last night and was watching the clock to come out to vote,” said Qari Salahuddin, 21, at a polling station in the eastern city of Jalalabad.About 12,5 million Afghans are registed to vote in the UN-organised US$159 million polls for a lower house of parliament and councils, the first legislative election since 1969.”Calm is prevailing in most areas and voters are flowing into our polling centres in a mood of call and joy,” said Peter Erben, the election commission’s chief electoral officer.About 160 000 staff are on duty at more than 6 000 polling stations in some of the most scenic and remote terrain on earth, from the desert in the south to valleys among the snow-capped Hindu Kush mountains in the north.The elections are part of an international plan to restore democracy in the Muslim country after the Taliban’s overthrow in 2001.Karzai won presidential elections last year, the first in the nation’s history.- Nampa-ReutersOnly one rocket exploded, slightly wounding an Afghan worker, an election official said, and the joint Afghan-UN election commission said, on the whole, voting was remarkably peaceful.”I’m so happy, I couldn’t sleep last night and was watching the clock to come out to vote,” said Qari Salahuddin, 21, at a polling station in the eastern city of Jalalabad.About 12,5 million Afghans are registed to vote in the UN-organised US$159 million polls for a lower house of parliament and councils, the first legislative election since 1969.”Calm is prevailing in most areas and voters are flowing into our polling centres in a mood of call and joy,” said Peter Erben, the election commission’s chief electoral officer.About 160 000 staff are on duty at more than 6 000 polling stations in some of the most scenic and remote terrain on earth, from the desert in the south to valleys among the snow-capped Hindu Kush mountains in the north.The elections are part of an international plan to restore democracy in the Muslim country after the Taliban’s overthrow in 2001.Karzai won presidential elections last year, the first in the nation’s history.- Nampa-Reuters