KABUL, 10 October 2004 — Most still hidden under head-to-toe burqas, Afghan women hit the polls yesterday staking their right to a say in their shattered country’s future, after years shut away at home forbidden to work or study. In Herat, the prosperous western city near the Iranian border, queues of men and women voters were roughly equal.

But in conservative southern city Kandahar, the Taleban’s former stronghold until US-led forces unseated them three years ago, women were scarce. Only seven women queued in the chilly autumn morning compared to 200 men next door.

All were shrouded in blue, green and violet burqas — which have become an emblem of the Taleban’s ultraorthodox reign when women were ordered to give up jobs and education and stay out of sight.

Three years after the Taleban, the burqa persists, underlining the conservatism that existed before and after the Taleban in the devoutly Islamic Central Asian state. It has only really subsided in the capital Kabul, where women are increasingly replacing them with head scarves.

The bobbing, bell-shaped sky-blue cloaks were a striking sight in the mud-walled schools and government buildings where most of the 5,000 polling booths were set up. “Our father said we should come early and vote. We are so happy,” said Rahgul, 45, who came with 11 women from her family to vote for Hamid Karzai. She was unfazed by threats from bitter Taleban supporters. “The Taleban warned us but we are not scared. We are Afghans,” she added.

In the southern Pushtun belt, only 20 percent of registered voters were women, compared to the national average of 41 percent. An illiterate woman voting in Herat sought guidance on how to vote. After being told to put a cross in front of the picture of her preferred candidate she voted and came out of the booth laughing.

“I did it, I did it, do you want to see what I did?” she asked the officials. When they said her ballot was secret, she laughed again and said: “I didn’t even know the name, but I’m very happy we decide the future of our country.”

The first ballot of the landmark election was cast by a refugee woman in Pakistan, where polls opened half an hour earlier because of the time difference. Science student Moqadasa Sidiqi, her head covered with a white scarf, said her ballot was a vote for peace so she and her family could go home.

But even the first cold snap of the season, a dust storm that reduced visibility to a 100 meters in places, mix-ups over the pens used in voting and a boycott by all but one of the candidates failed to dampen enthusiasm for the process. “This is one of the happiest days of my life,” said Sayed Aminullah as he cast he vote at Eid Gah Mosque in the capital.