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Afghans
Vote for "Fragmented Parliament"
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Karzai casts his ballot in Kabul. (Reuters)
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KABUL,
September 18, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Afghans
started voting in national assembly and provincial elections Sunday,
September 18, for the first time since 1969, with analysts predicting
"a fragmented parliament".
About
12.5 million Afghans are registered to vote in the $159 million,
UN-organized polls for a lower house of parliament and councils in all
34 provinces, Reuters reported.
About
160,000 polling 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.
"(It)
is the day of self-determination for the Afghan people,"
US-backed President Hamid Karzai told reporters after voting at a
heavily guarded state guest house.
"That
is why we are making history after 30 years of wars, interventions,
occupations and misery."
Voters,
including women in cover-all burqas, were searched before entering
polling stations and workers posted signs saying weapons were not
allowed. Police stood guard on roofs outside polling stations.
Protecting
voters are about 100,000 troops, including about 20,000 from a US-led
force and 10,000 NATO-led peacekeepers.
Polls
close at 4:00 p.m. (11:30 GMT) and final results will not be announced
for another month.
Fragmented
Parliament
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Afghan opposition leader Yunus Qanuni casts his ballot. (Reuters)
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Analysts
say it is impossible to predict what kind of parliament will emerge
largely because of the electoral system in which voters get one vote
in multi-member constituencies.
Under
the system, chosen by Karzai despite UN misgivings, candidates run as
independents, not party members, promising a fragmented parliament
with a clamor of voices competing for state funds, Reuters said.
But
an opposition bloc led by Yunus Qanuni has vowed to challenge Karzai,
who has not been involved in campaigning.
Qanuni
came a distant second to Karzai in the presidential vote in 2004.
"These
elections are very important because until now it's been a
presidential regime," Oliver Roy, a political analyst at France's
National Centre for Scientific Research, told Reuters.
"Karzai
has been elected but it's a one-man regime. To have a parliament is
very important to give a democratic dimension to the regime."
Karzai
is grappling with problems like having the world’s biggest narcotics
industry, corruption and widespread frustration with a perceived lack
of improvement in people's lives.
The
United Nations painted in February a bleak picture of the situation in
Afghanistan.
The
first ever Afghanistan Human Development Report warned that unless the
lack of jobs, health care, education and political participation were
addressed, "the fragile nation could easily tumble back into
chaos."
Under
Duress
Many
Afghans have, however, raised questions about the credibility of these
elections, saying their votes would not make a difference as police
would force them to vote as they did in the presidential election.
"We
don't see our future, we don't know if it will be good or not,"
40-year-old Mohammed Khan told Reuters.
"We
don't know the benefits of the election. Election -- what does it
mean?"
Others
believe that no improvement will be done to their living standards.
"For
me, what is the difference? What is democracy?" asks Sardar Khan,
who doesn't know how old he is but could be anywhere between 50 and
70, according to Reuters.
"In
the time of the Taliban we were poor Kuchi (shepherds), if this
democracy comes, we will still be poor Kuchi."
Taliban
Attacks
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An Afghan guard diverts traffic in Kabul after a Taliban rocket attack on a UN compound. (Reuters)
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Underlining
the security threat, more than a dozen attacks were launched across
the southeast and two rockets were fired, allegedly by the ousted
Taliban fighters, into a UN compound near an election center in Kabul
shortly after polls opened.
Only
one exploded, slightly wounding an Afghan worker, an election official
told Reuters.
Several
hours earlier two policemen and three Taliban fighters were killed in
an ambush near the Pakistani border.
Attackers
threw two grenades into the house of a candidate in Nangarhar province
in the east overnight. The candidate was not hurt but five family
members were wounded, police said.
A
US military spokesman said there had been attacks in more than a dozen
areas in the southern and eastern provinces of Khost, Kandahar and
Kunar in which at least six Afghan troops and one US soldier were
wounded.
"We
are seeing harassing attacks -- small arms, rocket grenades and IED
[improvised explosive device] type of stuff, pretty much throughout
the east and southeast of Afghanistan," said Colonel Jim Yonts.
Taliban
spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said fighters had carried out 39 attacks
including the rocket attack in Kabul.
Seven
candidates and six poll workers were killed in the run-up to the
ballot, according to a Reuters count.
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