Word: kabul
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...streets of Kabul were eerily quiet on Thursday, as polls for Afghanistan's second presidential election since the fall of the Taliban opened to little fanfare and even smaller crowds. Children, taking advantage of the trafficless streets, flew kites. Watermelon sellers languished in the shade of their carts waiting for a sale. The only customers were police, who were stationed at every intersection to inspect the few vehicles that passed their way. Kabul residents had been spooked by Wednesday's curious lack of violence and were apprehensive that the Taliban had planned something big for voting day. They were right...
...government ban on reporting election-day violence only heightened tensions. Nabi Ahmadi, an election volunteer at a station in central Kabul, was receiving regular updates via mobile phone from his brother, who was in turn hearing about violence from his network of friends throughout the city. "No one knows where the attacks are happening, so no one knows where it is safe to go vote," he says, gesturing at his empty polling station. Observers and volunteers outnumbered voters 20 to 1. Early in the day, nearly 100 men and half as many women had voted, he says, but since...
...ballot boxes. Zahir, a 29-year-old employee at the Ministry of Finance, fumes as he stands in line. "Today everyone in Afghanistan wants to select their favorite candidates, but unfortunately they are not optimistic," he says. "Look at this place: it's chaos. Yet we are in central Kabul - what hope do we have for the rural provinces...
...Outside of Kabul, the situation was indeed worse, with rocket attacks throughout the country scaring voters away from the polls. In Wardak province, next to Kabul, Taliban intimidation on the roads forced the provincial government to close all polling stations. As a last resort, soldiers from the Afghan army started going door to door with ballots, a practice that could easily be mistaken as a coercive tactic in favor of the current government. International and independent Afghanistan observers worry that the lack of voters could open the way to fraud: corrupt officials might use the names and registration numbers...
...universal theme was the low turnout by women. At one station in Kabul, no women had voted, and at another, just dozens turned up, compared with hundreds of men. This raises alarm bells. Women registered to vote in higher numbers than men this year, which many observers had found hard to believe in a traditional society like Afghanistan. Many suspect that men falsely registered fictitious wives and daughters in order to collect extra voting cards that could in turn be used to stuff ballot boxes. Few of the women's stations were monitored, which raises further questions. "I think people...