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Afghan Elections Largely Peaceful

Posted on: Monday, 19 September 2005, 15:00 CDT

Sep. 19--KABUL, Afghanistan -- Fatima picked up a ballot but did not know what to do next. She could not read. She did not know how to vote. She did not know the symbol or the number of her favorite person. She just knew he had a turban.

"Where is my candidate?" asked Fatima, 50, who like many Afghans has only one name.

"I don't know," responded Zakia Azizi, an election worker. "Turn the pages and find your candidate. Open the ballot. Turn the page and turn the page and turn the page. Find your candidate. I can't help you."

In the capital, Kabul, the confusing ballots seemed to pose more of a danger to voters than violence in Afghanistan's parliamentary elections Sunday. Results of the election, which featured candidates with ties to communists, the Taliban and everything in between, will be available in a few weeks.

Scattered attacks

Despite threats by the Taliban, there was only sporadic violence throughout the country. Fighting in eastern Afghanistan killed two policemen and wounded two U.S. soldiers Sunday, officials said. A rocket attack killed four men in eastern Kunar province, an Afghan army soldier was killed in eastern Nuristan province and three police officers were killed at a checkpoint in southeastern Khost province. Two rockets also landed at a UN warehouse in Kabul, injuring one.

"It was a complete defeat to the enemies of Afghanistan," Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said. "They tried, but they failed."

Across the country, millions braved fears, dressed in their best clothes and said they felt a duty to vote. Many voters see the elections as the final major step toward establishing a democracy in the country, torn by more than 20 years of war and still recovering from the Taliban, which was defeated in late 2001.

Some people did not seem nearly as enthusiastic as in last year's presidential elections. They showed up later. No one seemed to care about being the first in line.

It also appeared that fewer people turned out than last year. Some voting centers that were crowded last year were empty Sunday. Some election workers said they had prepared for many more voters than showed up. The reason -- apathy or fear -- was not clear.

In some places, the threat of violence did keep people at home. About half the expected voters turned up at the girls' school in Charso, the closest voting center to the spot in southern Kabul province where five police officers were killed early Saturday.

"People are afraid, so they're not coming," said Feriba Hamidi, 35, an election worker who had last seen a voter an hour and a half earlier.

Abdul Halim, 42, tried to vote on behalf of his wife and daughter. He was turned away.

"I can't bring them here," he said, pulling their voting cards from his breast pocket and looking around to see who was watching. "I'm too scared. ... This is a dark area. It's very strict."

In Kabul, people struggled more with the ballot than with fear.

Voters such as Fatima had to flip through a seven-page ballot of 390 names to find a parliamentary candidate, and a four-page ballot of 216 names to vote for a provincial council member.

At a polling place set up in a mosque, Halima, 75, sat down on a pile of carpets after trying to find her candidate's name for 20 minutes.

"Maybe you can call my son?" Halima asked an election worker. "He can help."

Fatima diligently searched the parliamentary ballot, running her finger over each name, looking for Mohammad Mohaqiq, a former warlord and presidential candidate last fall. She kept leaving her voting box to confer with a woman nearby.

'I don't know what to do'

But Zohra, 70, who wore Mr. Magoo glasses and a confused expression, was no help. "I don't know what to do," she said.

Laila Amiri, in charge of the polling station, walked by and hit the sides of the cardboard voting stations, trying to separate the women. Amiri, an algebra teacher, said she would never have taken the election job had she known how hard it would be.

"Most of the women are illiterate," Amiri said. "It's too difficult for me."

At other polling stations in Kabul, the story was similar. Esmatullah Lalzada, 65, voted for a woman for the parliament and a man for the provincial council. He could not read, and he did not know either person.

"I liked the pictures," Lalzada said.

Even people who could read spent at least five minutes looking through the ballot. Still, many knew whom they were voting for and why they supported the candidates. Aqashirin Dardmand, 56, said he wanted a parliament without criminals.

"It was not difficult for me to vote because I'm educated," he said.

Few people seemed to know anything about the symbols used to identify each candidate to illiterate voters. Fatima, for instance, did not know that Mohaqiq's symbol was an eye.

She hunched over her parliamentary ballot and tried to find him, but ultimately checked off a random man in a turban who was not Mohaqiq 30 minutes after she started to vote.

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Source: Chicago Tribune

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