The Independent Election Commission (IEC) announced on Thursday, that a second round of elections will be held on June 14 between leading candidates Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai.
The IEC Chief Ahmad Yousuf Nuristani said at the press conference in Kabul that none of the candidates received over 50 percent of votes to avoid a runoff. Hence, the second round of elections will be between the two top candidates: Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai.
From the total 7,018,849 votes casted, Dr. Abdullah led the final results with 2,973,706 votes making up 45 percent of the votes as Dr. Ahmadzai trailed in with 31.6 percent totaling 2,084,547 votes.
Zalmai Rassoul was in third with 11.4 percent, Abdul Rab Rassoul Sayyaf coming in fourth with 7.0 percent, Qutbuddin Helal carrying 2.8 percent, Gul Agha Sherzai with 1.6 percent, Daoud Sultanzoy with 0.5 percent and Hedayat Amin Arsala coming in last with 0.2 percent.
During a live press conference, Dr. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai addressed the media saying that he has accepted the final results and congratulated Dr. Abdullah for continuing onto the second round.
“Together we will win,” proclaimed Dr. Ahmadzai. “We are prepared for the second round. And we congratulate Dr. Abdullah for moving to the second round.”
He added that the second round of elections must be transparent and accepted by everyone.
Later in the day, Dr. Abdullah addressed the public at a press conference in reaction to IEC’s final result announcement.
“Although there were problems during the election process, today’s results are final,” Dr. Abdullah said. “We have accepted [the results] and so have the people of Afghanistan.”
Dr. Abdullah explained to his followers that their work is not done yet.
“I hope millions of people will take part in the runoff like they did during the first round,” he said. “We are competing with our rival team, not the people of Afghanistan. We are here to service the people of Afghanistan.”
Election campaigning will commence on May 22 until June 11, said Nuristani. He added that election materials will be transferred beginning May 25 as the Election Day is scheduled for June 14. Votes will be counted from June 15 through the 28th and complaints will be reviewed from July 5 to the 15th. Final results for the second round will be announced on July 22.
Nuristani added that there will be no issuance of new voter cards. He said the voter cards used in the first round can be reused in the second round.
In the first round, 7,018,049 Afghans participated on the April 5 elections, which was 50 percent more than in the 2009 presidential elections. Of those, 64 percent were male and 36 percent were female.
According to the election law the second round of elections is to be held two weeks after the announcement of final results.
“We cannot hold the runoff in two weeks because there is a lot of work that needs to be prepared,” Nuristani explained.
He also added that the IEC will dismiss 3,000 IEC employees because of their disloyal acts during the election process.
“We have documents of who was involved in rigging’s and fraudulent acts, they will be dismissed,” Nuristani said.
Source/Fuente: http://www.tolonews.com/elections2014/update-presidential-elections-go-s...
