KABUL, Afghanistan — Defying Taliban warnings and scattered attacks, Afghans voted Thursday in an election that has become a critical benchmark of the nation’s progress for both the Afghan government and the Obama administration.
The polls closed at 5 p.m. in Afghanistan, and the vote-counting began immediately. Despite the apparently low turnout in the south and complaints from some candidates about fraud, Afghan and American officials were quick to congratulate Afghans for voting despite the violence.
“On the basis of what we’ve seen so far, it seems clear that the Taliban utterly failed to disrupt these elections,” said Richard C. Holbrooke, the American special envoy to the region, in an interview after he toured four polling stations in Kabul.
President Hamid Karzai, at a news conference at the presidential palace as the polls were closing, said there had been 73 episodes of violence in 15 provinces.
“The Afghan people dared bombs, rockets and intimidations, but came out and voted,” Mr. Karzai said. “Let’s see what the turnout was.”
Mr. Karzai’s main opponent, the former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, called the low turnout in Kabul, “unsatisfactory.” He added that his supporters were lodging complaints of fraud, in particular from the southern province of Kandahar.
But even though it was too early to tell, Mr. Abdullah said preliminary results were hopeful, and he called the day a victory for the people of Afghanistan.
“Despite all the difficulties, despite all the security problems and other problems, people went to the polls, and they participated in this day,” he said at a news conference in the garden of his home. “And in fact they stood up to those who wanted to take away the people’s right to choose their destiny.”
Insurgents in the south threw up makeshift roadblocks in one area to warn off voters, and in Kandahar, witnesses said, insurgents hanged two people because their fingers were marked with indelible ink used to denote that they had voted.
“I know the Taliban threaten people not to vote, but I am coming and using my vote,” said Bakht Muhammad, 24, after he voted in Kandahar. “I want change. I want security. I want to live my life in our country.”
Even as officials from the Obama administration, on hand to monitor the elections, expressed reserved optimism that the voting was transparent, they fretted about whether the ballot counting would be equally so.
Mr. Holbrooke, speaking to reporters at one of the polling stations in Kabul cautioned: “The test is going to be in the counting. If the will of the electorate is going to be thwarted, it will happen in the counting.”
The polls opened at 7 a.m. As early as 8 a.m. in Kabul, officials at the American Embassy were hearing complaints of fraud. Ashraf Ghani, the former finance minister who is one of the presidential candidates, e-mailed American officials to say that he had reports that his opponents were stuffing ballot boxes. Other presidential candidates were making similar complaints to American officials, who referred them to the national election body.
“All the candidates and the rivals sent their complaints to the Independent Election Commission,” Mr. Karzai said, adding: “There is another commission called the Complaint Commission and they will evaluate and assess the complaints and I will not talk about it.”
As the suspicions of election fraud continued throughout the day, there were reports of sporadic violence that began in the morning as polls opened.
In Kabul, the Afghan police fought a gun battle on Thursday with three men who took over a house overlooking police headquarters in the Kart-e-Now district of the capital, killing two of them and capturing one, a police official said at the scene as bystanders applauded the officers who had fought the insurgents. The men were suspected of being suicide attackers sent by the Taliban.
The owner of the house, Naser, who like many Afghans uses only one name, was leaving to go vote when the gunmen stormed inside. “I went out with my boys to go to the polling station,” he said. “As soon as I got out of my house I saw two armed people enter it.” Naser said the gunmen told him to go away, and he soon witnessed the exchange of gunfire.
A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, told Reuters earlier that three Taliban guerrillas were involved in the shooting, which seemed to be part of a strategy to disrupt an election that is proving tighter than expected.
In Kandahar, there were few people on the streets after nine rockets were fired. But when the rocket fire eased, people slowly began making their way to the polling stations.
Sharina, a 30-year-old voter in Kandahar, said she was “scared of bombs and suicide bombers, but I have to take all this risk and participate in the election.”
But Bismillah Jan, 30, said he had told his family not to vote. “I am not afraid of the Taliban’s warning, but I am afraid of bombs and suicide explosions, so I will not let my family participate in the elections,” he said.
In the province of Wardak, an hour’s drive south of Kabul, there were more security officials than voters at many polling stations after a barrage of six rockets fell just before the polls opened and three more followed soon afterward.
A mechanic, Qudratullah, 32, who like many Afghans has only one name, said he encountered Taliban representatives on the road from Narkh District, just over a mile from the provincial capital of Wardak. “They were standing on the road telling people not to vote,” he said. “Of course I am scared,” he said. But he voted nonetheless. “We want to see change and a younger generation in a better condition.”
In Kabul, Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for Defense Ministry, said on television that the voting process was proceeding better than expected. In the southern province of Paktia, he said, two would-be suicide bombers were shot to death before they could detonate their explosives. Some 300,000 security personnel members from Afghan and NATO forces were deployed to guard the polls, he said.
But residents of Kabul said the turnout seemed lower than in previous elections in 2004 and 2005. At one polling station, Mitra Hemat, 24, an election worker, said the turnout was significantly down. “There are very few people,” she said. “People are afraid, I can tell.”
The major question at the election, diplomats and analysts said, is whether President Karzai will succeed in winning over 50 percent of the vote in the first round, securing a victory, or be pushed into a second, more unpredictable round of voting.
A vast field of 34 opponents and a last-minute surge by his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, as well as Taliban intimidation in the volatile south, which is Mr. Karzai’s base, threatened to chip away at the president’s support.
The election unfolded under high expectations among some Afghans that it would bring change. “I am happy to use my vote, and I hope things will change and peace will knock at our door,” said Zainab, a 40-year-old voter in Kandahar. “I am telling the world we want peace and stability in Afghanistan, I am telling the next president to restore peace and give Afghans the chance to work, I am telling the next president to stop this killing and bombing,” she said.
Musliha, 70, said: “If I sit at home and everyone sits at home, there will be no change, we can’t achieve what we want. We need to choose the right person.”
