Afghanistan’s presidential election closed on Saturday amid relief that attacks by Taliban fighters were fewer than feared.
It will take six weeks for results to come in from across Afghanistan’s rugged terrain and a final result to be declared in the race to succeed President Hamid Karzai.
“Today we proved to the world that this is a people driven country,” Karzai, wearing his trademark green robe and a lambskin hat, told his nation in televised remarks.
“On behalf of the people, I thank the security forces, election commission and people who exercised democracy and … turned another page in the glorious history of Afghanistan.”
One of the eight candidates will have to score over 50 percent of the vote to avoid a run-off with his nearest rival.
The Taliban threat to wreck the vote through bombings and assassination failed to materialize, and violent incidents were on a far smaller scale than feared.
Turnout was seven million out of 12 million eligible voters, or about 58 percent, according to preliminary estimates, election commission chief Ahmad Yousuf Nuristani told reporters.
That was well above the 4.5 million who voted at the last election in 2009 which was marred by widespread fraud.
In Washington, President Barack Obama congratulated the Afghan people on the elections.
“We commend the Afghan people, security forces, and elections officials on the turnout for today’s vote – which is in keeping with the spirited and positive debate among candidates and their supporters in the run-up to the election,” Obama said in a statement.
“These elections are critical to securing Afghanistan’s democratic future, as well as continued international support, and we look to the Afghan electoral bodies to carry out their duties in the coming weeks to adjudicate the results – knowing that the most critical voices on the outcome are those of Afghans themselves,” Obama said.
More than 350,000 Afghan troops were deployed, guarding against attacks on polling stations and voters. The capital, Kabul, was sealed off by rings of roadblocks and checkpoints.
In the city of Kandahar, cradle of the Taliban insurgency, the mood was tense. Vehicles were not allowed to move on the roads and checkpoints were set up at every intersection.
If there is no outright winner, the two frontrunners would go into a run-off on May 28, spinning out the process into the holy month of Ramadan when life slows to a crawl.
A long delay would leave little time to complete a pact between Kabul and Washington to keep up to 10,000 U.S. troops in the country beyond 2014.
