Afghanistan braved threats of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked violence on Sunday to hold the country’s first parliamentary elections in over 30 years. Fraught security conditions in the south and east of the country in the end prevented only 16 out of 6,250 polling centres from opening to voters.

Thin queues at many polling stations, however, suggested a lower turnout than the 70 per cent achieved during the October 2004 presidential elections won by Hamid Karzai. The biggest Afghan observer group, the Free and Fair Elections Foundation of Afghanistan, suggested turnout may have been as low as 50 per cent.