Legislative elections took place on Saturday in Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province after voting was delayed by a week following an attack by the Taliban.
Long queues formed outside polling centers in the deeply conservative provincial capital amid tight security following the killing of a powerful police chief and a local intelligence chief on October 18.
The Kandahar governor’s office tweeted that polling centers in the province had opened at 7 a.m. local time (0230 UTC) and assured people that serious security measures were in place to ensure the safety of voters.
Election and security officials faced pressure to avoid a repeat of last weekend’s debacle that saw polling throughout the rest of the country disrupted by violence and technical issues.
The Independent Election Commission (IEC) was forced to extend the ballot by a day when election material failed to arrive at scores of polling stations.
A new biometric identification system introduced to stem fraud allegations instead created massive confusion and caused delays lasting hours, frustrating voters and challenging the credibility of the polls.
The Taliban also conducted a series of rocket and bomb attacks across the country during last weekend’s polls that left 50 people dead.