Afghanistan citizens enraged over delay in president poll results

Citizens of Afghanistan have expressed their outrage over the frequent delay in the announcement of the final results of the presidential election that was held on September 28, 2019. According to the state media, the citizens gathered on February 7 and said that an election delay has left a significant impact on the country's political and security situation. One of the participants said that if the election commission does not announce the results, then they will not have any option except to go to the door of the election commission and raise their voice. 

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Abdullah refused to accept results

Another resident reportedly said that they are urging the electoral complaints commission to investigate the election process and share the results with the election commission as soon as possible. The Independent Election Commission (IEC) announced the preliminary results on December 22, 2019. As per the preliminary results, President Ashraf Ghani had earned 923,868 votes (50.64 per cent), and on the other hand, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah followed with 720,990 votes (39.52 per cent). But Abdullah refused to accept the results and ordered a recount alleging fraud. 

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IECC vowed to investigate complaints

The Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) began the process of auditing and registering 16,400 complaints and vowed to investigate and verify them in a transparent way. IECC decided to send a small percentage of the 300,000 disputed votes for a special audit on January 5. The decision was met with backlash by a number of campaign teams on Thursday. The IEC has said that it is completely prepared to cooperate with the IECC regarding the issue of special audits of the votes, as per the reports. Mirza Mohammad Haqparast, a spokesman for the IEC said that the committee and the secretariat is fully prepared to act upon the IECC's decisions-across the country--for the verification and recounting of votes. 

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