Despite threats of violence, voters waited for hours outside polling centres across the country. Some eventually gave up and went home without casting a ballot.

University student Mohammad Alem said he felt “frustrated” after spending more than three hours trying to vote in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, only to discover his name was not on the registration list.

“There also were some problems with the biometric devices because they were already running out of charge,” he said.

After waiting four hours at a polling centre, Tabish Forugh tweeted he had not seen “even remotely similar… chaos” at previous elections.

The parliamentary ballot is more than three years late and only the third since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

Turnout was likely affected after the terrorist group issued several warnings in the days leading up to the poll calling on candidates to withdraw from the race and for voters to stay home.

Hundreds of people were killed or wounded in the months before the poll.

The killing of a powerful police chief in the southern province of Kandahar on Thursday further eroded confidence in the ability of security forces to protect voters.

Voting in Kandahar has been delayed until October 27 following the attack.

Despite the risks, President Ashraf Ghani urged “every Afghan, young and old, women and men” to exercise their right to vote, after casting his ballot in Kabul.

Photos posted on social media showed scores of men and women clutching their identification documents lining up outside voting centres amid a heavy security presence.

A woman dressed in a burqa leaving a polling centre in Mazar-i-Sharif told AFP she had been worried about “security incidents”, but decided to vote anyway.

“We have to defy the violence,” Hafiza, 57, said.