Afghanistan holds first parliamentary vote in 30 years
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-09-18 11:43

Security is high following a warning by the hardline Islamic Taliban, ousted in late 2001, that civilians could be hurt if they go to the polls, and after a spike in violence including the killing of a seventh candidate on Thursday.

Around 100,000 Afghan soldiers, police and security staff will guard against trouble, along with 20,000 US-led coalition troops and 10,500 NATO-led peacekeepers.

On the eve of the election security forces arrested 20 rebels who were laying bombs to blow up a dam in southern Afghanistan, government officials said.

Three policemen were killed in the capital late Friday, and four suspected Taliban militants were killed and several arrested across the country late in the week, they said.

But UN officials helping to organise the internationally sponsored vote, which has been delayed twice, urged Afghans not to be intimidated by the threats.

Afghans have responded to the vote with a mixture of enthusiasm and weary cynicism.

"A lot of candidates have spent over 10,000 dollars on the election and they will be looking to get it back when they go to parliament. They won't care about people," said Qasim Basa Reza, 41, who manages a photography shop in the western city of Herat.

But Zulikha Anwary, a burqa-clad female teacher in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, said it was a "great day in the history of Afghanistan."

Up for grabs are 249 seats in the Wolesi Jirga, the lower house of the national assembly, and 420 seats on the 34 provincial councils.

Sixty-eight seats have been reserved for women on the national assembly, a dramatic turnaround in the conservative country where women were barred from public life and forced to wear all-covering burqas under the Taliban.

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