Abdullah and Ghani Afghan presidency will be played on 14 June

The Afghanistan Independent Electoral Commission confirmed Thursday that Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani have to go to a runoff after failing to receive at least 50% of the votes in the first ballot for president. The date for the new call has been scheduled for June 14. Who eventually becomes favorite to replace Hamid Karzai will have to deal with the withdrawal of foreign forces and the growing challenge of the Taliban insurgency.

“Since none of the candidates has exceeded 50 % of the vote, a runoff election is needed,” announced the president of the Commission, Ahmad Yusuf Nuristani, during a press conference. The first round was held on April 5.

Once processed all complaints, the agency has practically validated previous results announced two weeks ago. Abdullah, a former leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, won 45% of the vote, while Ghani, a former senior World Bank official, is in second place with 31.56%.

Both have participated in the construction of their country since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 and maintained good relations with the West. However, their characters could not be more different. While Abdullah, 53 training and ophthalmologist, has a reputation for slow and patient talk, Ghani, anthropologist and economist, 64, is known for its untimely nature.

Third among the 11 contenders which has been worldwide considered the favorite candidate of Karzai, Zalmay Rassoul, with just 11.37 %. Last week, Rassoul announced his support for Abdullah, but the gesture was not enough to avoid a runoff, as Ghani insists on staying in the race.

The issue is not trivial because, due to the destruction of election materials in a Taliban attack, the call had to be delayed two weeks, until 14 June. Consequently, Afghanistan President will have until 22 July, when the final results expected to be taken. The timing matters because the country whose political institutions are still very fragile, facing a renewed Taliban offensive, eager to capitalize on the withdrawal of foreign forces later this year.

Despite their very different personal style, both Abdullah and Ghani have expressed their willingness to sign the call with the U.S. Bilateral Security Agreement. This text, which Karzai has rejected despite having approved a Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly) convened by him, provides permanence after 2014 several thousand U.S. troops to fight the insurgency and training of troops Afghan.

The two candidates have also stressed the need to reconcile the different ethnic groups in the country and have declared their willingness to make peace with the Taliban to end violence. Insurgents however refused to negotiate with Karzai, who have always accused of being a U.S. lackey. Some analysts believe that increased their attacks is just an attempt to improve their position in the eventual negotiations. Many Afghans fear however the price a future agreement with these radicals, especially human rights and women.

Nuristani also reported that in the first round had been canceled 300,000 votes, compared to the million who declared null presidential 2009. Though this time there have been more complaints, analysts have successfully qualified scrutiny by both the high share (7 million of the 12 million registered) as the relative quiet of the election day that passed.

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Posted by Shakira Subhani on May 17 2014. Filed under World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.