KABUL, Afghanistan — Braving cold, rain and Taliban attacks, Afghans gathered in such long lines at polling places that voting hours were extended nationwide so they could cast their ballots to choose the successor to President Hamid Karzai on Saturday.
Rather than the widespread disruption that the Taliban had promised in recent months, the thing most on display was determination, as Afghans turned out in higher numbers than expected, including in some places where votes were scarce in the 2009 election. There was no heavy barrage of attacks, though fears of potential violence did keep roughly one in eight polling centers closed nationwide.
For the first time, Afghans were voting on what appeared to be an open field of candidates, after Mr. Karzai’s dozen years in power. Accordingly, no one expected a quick result Saturday: the top three candidates were expected to closely divide up the vote, and a runoff election seemed certain. That election would probably be held no sooner than May 28, continuing Mr. Karzai’s time in office for another two months at least. Even partial official results were not expected for a week.
With eight candidates in the race, the five minor candidates’ shares of the vote made it even more difficult for any one candidate to reach the 50 percent threshold that would allow outright victory.
The leading candidates going into the vote were Ashraf Ghani, 64, a technocrat and former official in Mr. Karzai’s government; Abdullah Abdullah, 53, a former foreign minister who was the second biggest vote-getter against Mr. Karzai in the 2009 election; and Zalmay Rassoul, 70, another former foreign minister, who is the only major candidate with a woman on his ticket as vice-presidential candidate, Habiba Sarobi. Informal polls in recent weeks showed Mr. Abdullah and Mr. Ghani in the lead, but polling in Afghanistan is notoriously unreliable.
Early in the day, in a high school near the presidential palace, an emotional Mr. Karzai cast his own vote for his successor. “I, as a citizen of Afghanistan, did this with happiness and pride,” he said afterward.
The streets of the capital, swamped by a heavy rain, were almost entirely devoid of vehicle traffic, except for members of the police force and the military, who were on duty at checkpoints every few hundred feet and searched nearly everyone passing by.
Most people walked to vote. Long lines had already formed when polls opened at 7 a.m. in Kabul and other major cities.
“People have realized that electing the president is far more important than standing in the rain,” said a voter, Abdullah Abdullah, 24, who had the same name as the candidate he said he was planning to vote for at a Kabul high school polling place.
“Whenever there has been a new king or president, it has been accompanied by death and violence,” said Abdul Wakil Amiri, an attorney who turned out early to vote at a Kabul mosque. “For the first time, we are experiencing democracy.”
“Threats exist always and we are used to it,” said Jahanzaib, 28, a farmer from Mohmand Dara district in Nangarhar. “I will use my vote. That is my right and the only way to transfer power from President Karzai to someone else.”
Hajji Noor Mohammad, a farmer in Panjwai District, in Kandahar Province, was unable to vote in 2009 because there were so many Taliban around. He plans to vote this time, he said.
“Today most people realize the importance of the election because the tribal elders were now telling us to use our vote and come out,” he said.
Noting the Taliban threat to disrupt the election, Nicholas Haysom, the United Nations’ top election official here, said, “The failure to disrupt the elections will mean that they will have egg on their face after the elections.”
More women than ever are on provincial ballots, and two are running for vice-president, marking the first time a woman has ever run for national office here.
At the women’s polling station in the Nadaria High School, in Kabul’s Qala-e-Fatullah neighborhood, among those lining up to vote was Parwash Naseri, 21. Although wearing the blue burqa that is traditional here, she was still willing to speak out through the privacy mesh covering her face.
She was voting for the first time for her children, and for women’s rights, she said, speaking in a whisper.
“I believe in the right of women to take part just as men do, to get themselves educated and to work.”
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