Voter turnout low in Afghanistan's presidential election

Sept. 29 (UPI) -- Sharply fewer residents of Afghanistan turned out for the presidential election, according to a preliminary count.

Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission reported Sunday that 1,051,998 voters -- roughly half of the 4,900 centers -- went to the polls Saturday.

If those figures hold up, the turnout would be 25 percent, which is less than the past three presidential elections since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. The turnout was 60 percent in 2014, when fraud allegations mired the voting and resulted in the "national unity government."

In this year's election, about 9.6 million citizens had registered to vote. The nation has an estimated population of 35 million.

Incumbent Ashraf Ghani and chief executive Abdullah Abdullah, who have shared power since 2014 in the unity government, are the two main candidates.

Final results are not do until Nov. 7 with preliminary results in about three weeks. If no candidate receives more than half votes, a runoff will take place between the two leading candidates.

Around 70,000 troops and police were deployed to guard polling stations.

Although voting was relatively calm, hundreds of attacks were reported outside the polling sites.

The Afghanistan Analysts Network reported more than 400 attacks were reported across the country over the course of election day.

The Taliban claimed to have conducted 531 attacks and the interior ministry said "the enemy" had carried out 68 assaults.