Afghans are heading to the polls to vote in a second-round presidential election under the threat of Taliban attack, as US-led combat troops wind down a 13-year war that has failed to defeat the insurgents.
The run-off election will decide whether former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah or ex-World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani leads the country into a new era with declining international military and civilian assistance.
President Hamid Karzai is due to step down after ruling the country since 2001, when a US-led offensive ousted the austere Taliban regime for sheltering al-Qaeda militants behind the 9/11 attacks.
Afghan officials and international allies are hoping for a repeat of the successful first-round vote in April, when the insurgents failed to launch a single high-profile attack and voter turnout was more than 50 per cent.
But the stakes are high with the Taliban issuing specific threats to target polling stations and widespread fears that electoral fraud could produce a contested result.
UN head of mission Jan Kubis issued a stark warning to candidates' supporters not to resort to the kind of ballot-box stuffing that marred the 2009 election when Karzai retained power.
"Do not commit fraud. Do not use intimidation or manipulation to favour your candidate," Kubis said.
Abdullah secured 45 per cent of the first-round vote with Ghani on 31.6 per cent, after investigations into multiple fraud claims by both sides.
The two candidates came top of an eight-man field, triggering the run-off election as neither reached the 50 per cent threshold needed for an outright victory.
A smooth handover in Afghanistan's first democratic transfer of power would be a major achievement for the international effort to establish a functioning state after the depredations of the Taliban era.
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