Kerry brokers a recount in Afghan presidential election

U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, has announced that two Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, have agreed to a recount under UN supervision of the vote in the second round of the presidential elections held on 14 June. Both have pledged to respect the final results.

The count will begin within 24 hours and will include the supervision of representatives of both Ghani and Abdullah to ensure that it performs properly. Furthermore, it has postponed the date of inauguration, scheduled for August 2, to give room for the completion of the computation. “Both candidates have pledged to participate in and to submit the results of the largest and most comprehensive audit. Each and every one of the votes cast will be reviewed,” Kerry said in a joint press conference with Abdullah and Ghani from UN headquarters in Kabul.

“This is the strongest signal that can give the two candidates about their desire to restore the legitimacy of the process,” added the head of American diplomacy.

First, partial official results Ghani granted to victory with over 56% of the vote, while Abdullah would have achieved little more than 43%. However, Abdullah has alleged irregularities in the process and has come to be crowned winner of the elections.

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) on Wednesday announced its decision to postpone publication of the preliminary results, scheduled for the day, to undertake a review of the votes cast at 2,000 polling stations, some eight million votes.

A UN official said hours after the delay consider looking into allegations by Abdullah, while Ghani’s campaign team said it is in the lead with an advantage of more than a million votes, but so far no official figures.

The choice was going to be the first democratic transfer of power in the history of Afghanistan. Now, the UN fears that the dispute between Abdullah, with support mainly from the Tajik minority, and Ghani, a member of the Pashtun majority, may ignite latent ethnic tensions in the country.

Abdullah has accused Afghan President Hamid Karzai, an ethnic Pashtun, of complicity in electoral fraud. Last week thousands of supporters of Abdullah marched to the presidential palace.

However, Karzai has repeatedly expressed its neutrality in the process and denied intending to stay in office. Also conveyed past the special U.S. envoy to Afghanistan James Dobbins week that the new president will take up office on August 2, as scheduled.

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Posted by Jamshed Sindhu on Jul 14 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.