Afghanistan has finally started its long-delayed parliamentary elections. The vote marked the third such election in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
Due to security reasons and reforms in the registration process, the vote, which was originally scheduled for 2015, was delayed for a long time.
According to the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan, over 2,500 candidates ran for the 250 seats in the lower house, and 417 of the candidates were women.
An election official assists an Afghan man at a polling station during a parliamentary election in Kabul, Afghanistan, October 20, 2018. /VCG Photo
The elected parliamentarians will serve five-year terms. All Afghan citizens who are aged 18 or above with a valid voter identification card have the right to vote.
Nearly nine million people registered to vote and over three million of them are women, the election commission noted.
There were 21,000 polling stations in the country, while voting in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar would be delayed by one week following the assassination of the provincial police commander this week.
Ghazni province also did not take part in today's election.