Afghanistan

Afghan election result delayed for recounting: official

369437_Afghanistan-election-ballotsThe preliminary result of Afghanistan’s presidential run-off has been delayed for several days as a dispute over alleged fraud threatens to derail the country’s first democratic transfer of power.

“We have started inspecting the votes in around 2,000 polling centers after the commission decided to make sure of transparency,” Independent Election Commission (IEC) member Sharifa Zurmati said on Tuesday.

The official added, “The announcement has been delayed for several days until the inspection ends. We will hopefully finish the inspection Friday and then set a date. During the inspection, some votes will be invalidated.”

The preliminary result of the June 14 run-off vote had been due Wednesday. The winner of the Afghan election will succeed outgoing President Hamid Karzai, who has been in power since the US-led invasion of the Asian country in 2001.

Abdullah Abdullah, previously seen as the poll front-runner, has said that he would reject the result due to “blatant fraud,” while his rival presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani said that the election was clean and claimed victory by more than one million votes.

Meanwhile, the campaign team for Abdullah has released fresh audio tapes, which allegedly reveal stuffing ballot boxes and fraud in the runoff poll.

The recordings are said to have captured conversations between Zia-ul-Haq Amarkhail, former head of the IEC secretariat, and Ghani’s aides in several provinces. The authenticity of the recordings has not been verified yet.

The new allegations came after Abdullah’s team on June 22 released audio recordings, accusing Amarkhail of misdeeds in the transfer of unused ballots during the runoff poll.

Abdullah says evidence suggests that some ballot boxes were filled with votes a day before the runoff election.

The presidential candidate has even alleged that the voter turnout was higher than the number of eligible voters in several provinces.

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