[DAWN] Preliminary results expected on Saturday after last month’s presidential election in Afghanistan have been delayed, the election commission said.Officials had previously indicated that results would likely be pushed back. But in her announcement, Awa Alam Nuristani, who heads the Independent Election Commission (IEC), did not say how long the vote count will be delayed.
“Unfortunately, because of some technical issues and for transparency, we could not announce the results based on the election timetable,” she said, apologising at a press conference.
The IEC previously said that less than one-third, or about 2.7 million of Afghanistan’s 9.6 million registered voters, cast ballots in the Sept 28 first-round poll.
With fears of fraud and threats of deadly Taliban violence, it was a record low turnout.
The contest featured 18 candidates but President Ashraf Ghani, seeking a second five-year term, and Afghanistan’s Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, are the favourites.
Just two days after the election and before all votes had even arrived in Kabul for counting, Abdullah claimed victory in a move that international and local observers panned as premature.
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