At a gathering in Kabul on Tuesday, in front of a number of high-ranking officials and Afghan media representatives, leading presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah said a runoff round - required by law to determine the winner if no one gets an outright majority - would be a waste of time.
The ceremony was held in commemoration of the Mujahiddin (8 Sawr) who fought for Afghanistan's independence from the Soviet Union. However, most of the day's discourse was focused around the presidential election, the outcome of which remains unclear despite the fact that Abdullah leads the preliminary results by a health margin.
“We are committed to defending Afghans’ rights and safeguard their votes, and we are asking the electoral commissions to do their duties honestly and fairly," Abdullah said. "They should know that the people understand everything that going on."
Although he said it would be a waste of time, Abdullah and his team expressed confidence that if there was a second round, which would include the top two contenders from the first round, that they would triumph. Based on the preliminary results announced by election officials last weekend, Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai would likely be the candidate to face off with Abdullah in the runoff.
Abdullah’s Vice-President Mohammad Mohaqeq called on the Independent Election Commission (IEC) and Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) to address the concerns their campaign has raised about the invalidation of votes suspected of fraud and the complaints investigation process.
“We are waiting for changes within the commissions," Mohaqeq said on Tuesday. "We presented and registered complaints and our complaint papers were defrauded...we want them to fix this."
ECC officials said they had received 121 complaints since preliminary results were announced on Saturday. Most of them were reportedly filed by Abdullah's camp.
At the same ceremony on Tuesday, President Karzai’s Vice-Oresident Mohammad Yunus Qanuni was also in attendance. He urged the electoral commissions to respect the votes of the people.
“The election is now in the hands of the two commissions, and our wish is that the votes of Afghans be respected," he said. "They should respect votes without any conspiracy and bullying."
Thousands of votes around the country have been discarded following investigations into reports of ballot box stuffing and result sheet fraud. Although election observers have said there was more transparency and legitimacy this year in comparison to the 2009 vote, the past few weeks have indicated there was still a significant amount of corrupted votes on Election Day.
The leader of Hezbe Jamyat-e-Islami Afghanistan, Salahuddin Rabbani, also took part in the ceremony on Tuesday. He too focused on the elections and said that any kind of disrespect to honest votes, or support of fraud, would cause major problems for the country.
“Respect, protection and counting of each vote will open a new page in Afghanistan and conscious disrespect would be an insult to the wisdom of the people," he said.
Election officials have consistently reaffirmed their commitment to a fair and transparent process, though they have received criticisms from observers for not allowing full monitoring of the vote counting and fraud investigation processes.
As counting comes to an end in the coming days, the ECC is expected to take on a bigger role, adjudicating the hundreds of complaints that have been filed. The full count of votes from the first round, including ballots judged to be illegitimate, will not be known until after the ECC competes its adjudications. At the moment, the final results are expected by May 14.
Source/Fuente: http://www.tolonews.com/elections2014/runoff-would-be-waste-time-abdullah
