The head of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) Ahmad Yusuf Nuristani gave the breakdown of the partial results.
Former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah is in the lead with 44.9 per cent of the votes, closely followed by former World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani with 31.5 per cent.
#IEC chief Nooristani: prilimanry results of presidential elex:
— Vote.af (@VoteAFG) April 26, 2014
Dr. Abdullah 44.9%
Dr. Ashraf Ghani 31.5%
Dr. Zalmai 11.5%
Prof. Sayyaf 7.1%
#Afghanistan #AfghanElections 64% Men & 34% Women voted. 6.8 Million votes cast.
— Bashir Ahmad Gwakh (@bashirgwakh) April 26, 2014
The two leading candidates will go to run-off elections rather than having talks about a coalition government.
Amarkhail: IEC had planned ahead for a possible runoff. Both financially & technically. #AfghanElections #AFG2014 #AFG1393 VIa @TOLOnews
— Abdulhaq Omeri (@AbdulhaqOmeri) April 26, 2014
https://twitter.com/omid_zaki/status/460059654677356545
The preliminary results are due to be finalized on May 14 after investigations into fraud complaints.
Nuristani: if runoffs were to happen, it will take place on June 7 #AfghanElections
— TOLOnews (@TOLOnews) April 26, 2014
Candidates hit out at results
Fazal Oriya, Abdullah's spokesperson, told the media that "the results announced by the IEC are unacceptable for us."
Ghani's spokesperson, Dr Farooqi, also said that thousands of fraudulent votes were included in the final preliminary result which affected the statistics.
After fraud allegations were made in regard to the votes, the IEC delayed the date of the announcement of the preliminary results (originally scheduled April 24) to ensure the results are free of suspect votes.
COMMENTS (9)
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i will give wode to the doctor abdullah abdullah
@ Mahmud Ahmad
I took the liberty of correcting your spelling errors for your handle. Arabs don't spell it the way you did.
Afghanistan is not going to break up and there won't be a civil war either. Those days are over, much to the chagrin of Pakistanis.
Let the people of Afghanistan decide. We have to respect their decision for their own future. Both candidates are more qualified than most of our civil and military rulers.
Haha look they actually think it's all real.
From the latest comments on the Afghan Presidential Elections ir looks as the country is heading towards a civil war that will result in its breakup. The leading contenders are accusing the Independent Election Commission of fraud and deliberate delay in announcement of the results. Abdullah Abdullah, the most ambitious and volatile of the candidate has to control his language and accept what the IEC rules in this connection. Any eruption of violence among the tribes' infested society will not be a good omen for its future and the experiment in democracy for the region that includes India.
Am I the only one surprised that these supposedly "fresh" and "nation changing" elections feature a lot of the same faces that ruined Afghanistan, in the first place? Ashraf Ghani's Vice Presidential candidate is Rashid Dostum, who is probably the most brutal warlord in Afghanistan. And Abdullah Abdullah was very close to Ahmed Shah Massoud back in the day. Massoud was an Islamist whose militias used terror and rape as a weapon of war. These guys are the exact same scum as the Taliban.
While run-off elections are a good idea, elections don't come cheap, apart from the dislocations they cause. Afghanistan is not a rich country. It ought to modify the idea of the run-off elections as necessary only if the difference in percentages cast in the general election is less than a certain percentage, say 10%. In this case, it is 13.4% and a run-off could have been avoided.
I prefer Abdullah since he isn't a Pashtun nationalist.
Hope second phase is also smooth and peaceful. Wish both candidates best of luck and better future for Afghanistan. Lessons we learnt are that Taliban threats worked better in KP than Afghanistan and our favourite 'Gulbudin' is most un-popular person in Afghanistan.