Abdullah deepens crisis by declaring victory in Afghan elections

Abdullah Abdullah rejected the Afghan presidential elections and today rejected the victory of his opponent Ashraf Ghani, opening a political and ethnic crisis in Afghanistan months before the withdrawal of NATO troops. ” We are the winners of elections and must form a legitimate government,” Abdullah said at a meeting at the traditional Loya Jirga – assembly – in Kabul, a day after the preliminary results  indicated Ghani a winner.

The former leader of the Northern Alliance against the Taliban announced that in the coming days to announce his government request “legitimate voters” and threatened to pull his voters to the streets. However, did not support the creation of a parallel government and some of its allies demanded, petition has raised concerns of a possible ethnic conflict.

Ghani, a technocrat with experience in the World Bank represent Pashtun ethnic group that accounts for 40 % of Afghans while Abdullah descends of Pashtun father and Tajik mother, so he is linked to the latter. ” We do not want the partition of Afghanistan. Want to preserve national unity and dignity of Afghanistan. Do not want a civil war, but stability,” remarked the politician.

The Election Commission of Afghanistan (IEC) yesterday announced the preliminary results of the second round of voting on 14 June that showed Ghani took the lead with  56.44 % of the vote, compared to 43.56 % of Abdullah. In the first round, held on April 5, Abdullah scored 45% of the vote, while Ghani achieved 31%.

The final results will be announced on July 22 and is expected that the new president is inaugurated into office on August 2.

Abdullah accused the outgoing president Hamid Karzai, Ghani, and the IEC for staging an “industrial scale” fraud  with the introduction of fake votes in the polls and repeatedly requested the recount of the ballots. The IEC agreed to recount nearly 2,000 polling stations, insufficient measure to Abdullah and election observers from the European Union, in a statement said fraud could be in 6,000 centers.

Political tension for the results of the elections were today joined by a new suicide attack in which at least 16 people. The dead were four soldiers of the NATO mission in Afghanistan (ISAF), two Afghan policemen and ten civilians, according to a preliminary assessment of the international organization and local authorities, who attributed the attack to the Taliban. The attack occurred in Parwan province, in the northeast.

International troops began in 2011 to gradually withdraw from Afghanistan and phased transfer the responsibility for security to the Afghan army and police. The ISAF mission in Afghanistan will end later this year, but the U.S. has announced it will hold about 9,800 troops in the country until the total withdraw in late 2016.

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Posted by Maleeha Tareen on Jul 9 2014. Filed under Latest News, 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.