Making a point: Despite Taliban threats to cut off the fingers of voters, today's presidential election in Afghanistan went ahead as planned. The woman above shows her ink-dipped finger after voting in Kabul. Thirty-four candidates ran against one another in Afghanistan's second presidential election since the fall of the Taliban.
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Tight security: An Afghan police officer searches voters for weapons as men line up in front of a polling station in Lublan in southern Afghanistan. In addition to the police, about 300,000 NATO and Afghan troops were deployed to help safeguard the process. At a news conference as polls closed, President Hamid Karzai said there had been 73 incidents of violence, but praised Afghans for braving threats to vote.
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In a radical turnaround from the Taliban government, which forced women out of work and schools, the current government encouraged women to vote in today's election. Afghanistan's election commission deployed 1,600 civic educators around the country to inform men and women about their rights. Nevertheless, observers noted that the numbers of female voters were much lower than male turnout. Above, an Afghan woman displays her voter registration card as others wait behind her to cast their ballots at a polling station in Kabul.
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A solitary electoral worker, sitting amid cardboard booths, waits for voters in a mosque used as a polling station in Kabul. Low voter turnout was reported across Afghanistan, though official numbers will not be available until the votes are counted. Some voters might have been scared by Taliban threats to attack election facilities. The closing time for some voting stations was extended by an hour, however, from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.
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President Karzai shows off his inked finger after placing his vote at a polling station in Kabul. The leader of Afghanistan since December 2001, Karzai won the last election in 2004 without any serious challenges and was widely considered the favorite for today's election. Several strong challengers emerged, however, and the most recent national poll, conducted in late July, estimated that Karzai did not have enough support to win 50 percent of the vote and avoid a runoff.
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Candidate Abdullah Abdullah, the leading contender to displace Karzai, greets supporters at a rally in Kabul on Aug. 17. Abdullah, a former foreign minister and trained ophthalmologist, is widely thought to be the most likely candidate to challenge Karzai in a runoff, and possibly beat him. Abdullah has drawn large crowds across Afghanistan, particularly in areas with high Tajik populations such as Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif, where he is closely associated with Ahmed Shah Massoud, the late Northern Alliance leader and Tajik hero.
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Campaign season: Afghanistan's election represented the culmination of a long and contentious campaign, a new experience in a country without much history of electoral competition. Of the 41 original candidates, seven withdrew, with most then endorsing Karzai, but 34 were on the final ballot. Along with Abdullah Abdullah, several candidates including Ramazan Bashardost, an eccentric member of parliament campaigning on an anti-corruption platform, and Ashraf Ghani, a former finance minister, were expected to draw large numbers of votes. Above, a building in Kandahar is covered with campaign posters on Aug. 18.
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Election organizers prepared for weeks to stock Afghanistan's 6,800 planned polling stations with election staffers and equipment such as ballot papers and sealed ballot boxes. Ninety-five percent of the stations ended up being open for voting. Massive outreach efforts were also made to register and educate voters. According to the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, which provided organization support, 4.5 million new voters were registered, for a total of about 17 million.
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Getting out to vote: Intimidation before the election and some small-scale attacks were blamed from scaring away voters in southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban is considered strongest. However, many voters, such as the woman above at a polling center at a school, still turned out in the southern city of Kandahar, even after a rocket attack, but preliminary reports from rural areas suggest large numbers of voters stayed home. As vote counting begins, lower turnout from the south is speculated to increase the chance of a runoff between Karzai and Abdullah, whose main support base is in Afghanistan's northern regions.
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Voter turnout aside, the election process itself was reported to have run smoothly, and special efforts such as the sealed and clear ballot boxes seen above in Deh Rawod in southern Afghanistan were made to increase transparency and accountability. Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission set up a special office before the polls opened to field complaints and announced after voting ended that it was investigating various incidents that were reported. The most prominent complaint was that the supposedly indelible ink in which voters dipped their fingers after voting was easily removed with cleaning fluid.
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Making every vote count: Afghan election workers such as those above in Kabul, have begun to count millions of votes, with a counting and tallying process open to observers from the media and representatives from the various campaigns. Preliminary results are not expected to be announced until Sept. 3, with final results two weeks later.
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A French soldier patrols near a planned polling station on Aug. 17 in Deh Rawod in southern Afghanistan. Today's presidential election is a milestone for Afghanistan. Nevertheless, despite this achievement, Afghanistan's long war will continue.
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