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Afghans went to the polls on Saturday to vote for members of their Parliament. More than a dozen people were reported to have been killed, and many more injured in hundreds of incidents of election-related violence. In the lead up to Saturday, candidates were kidnapped, and election workers killed. Female candidates and election workers were particularly targeted. Of the four elections that have taken place since 2001, this last election had the lowest turnout with only about three and a half million people, or about 21 percent of the electorate estimated to have voted. But even as President Karzai praised the elections as an all-round success, the Free and Fair Elections Commission of Afghanistan has already expressed serious concerns about ballot stuffing and other widespread fraud. The New York Times last week reported on the market prices of Afghan voter registration cards which varied from about $15 to $18 a ballot depending upon the province. The President’s own cousin, Jamil Karzai was accused by election officials of storming into a vote-counting center to interfere with the counting. Hundreds of polling centers simply did not open because of fears of violence. There were about 2,500 candidates vying for the 249 seats in the lower house of the Afghan Parliament. Results will not be available for weeks, perhaps months.

GUEST: Anand Gopal, Afghanistan-based journalist. He has reported for the Christian Science Monitor and Wall Street Journal. He is currently working on a book about the Afghan war.

Read more at www.anandgopal.com.