国际英语新闻:Voting for Afghan parliamentary elections concludes

KABUL, Oct. 21 (Xinhua) -- The voting process of Afghan parliamentary elections concluded Sunday evening and the ballot counting continued, the chairman of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) said.

"The voting process in 32 out of 34 Afghan provinces concluded Sunday evening," Chairman Gula Jan Abdul Badi Sayad told reporters.

Balloting started on Saturday as the IEC initially planned to hold the polls in one day, but the IEC officials extended the voting to Sunday as scores of polling centers were not open or run on Saturday after long delays due to militants' attacks, irregularities, and low attendance of election workers.

The elections covered 32 out of the country's 34 provinces. Voting in Kandahar and Ghazni provinces has been postponed due to security reasons.

Ballot counting in 80 percent of the polling centers were completed on Saturday but the counting will continue in some polling centers till late Sunday, Sayad added.

More than 2,500 candidates are contesting for the Wolesi Jirga or the 249-seat lower house of the parliament.

Most of the candidates stand independently as the country did not have many regular and standard political parties.

Nearly nine million voters, out of 12 million eligible Afghans, were registered to take part in the process and elect their lawmakers for a five-year term.

However, only over four million Afghans, with 33 percent of them women, cast their ballots during the two-day elections due to Taliban intimidation and security threats, according to Sayad.

Preliminary results will be announced on Nov. 10 and the final results are expected to be released on Dec. 20, according to the IEC timetable.