Afghan election results in uncertainty despite completion of vote recounting

Even though Afghan election commission completed the votes auditing and recounting process a couple of days ago, the election results have yet to be announced obviously owing to the continued dispute between the two presidential candidates.

The votes auditing and recounting process of more than 8 million votes cast in the runoff on June 14 was over on Thursday night, spokesman of the election commission Noor Mohammad Noor said on Friday.

Nevertheless, he did not give the date for announcing the results, saying the results would be announced after examination of the complaints by the election complaint commission.

In the first round of the election held on April 5, none of the eight candidates secured more than 50 percent of the more than 7 million votes. The two leading candidates, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, entered a runoff on June 14.

Abdullah, who had secured majority of the votes in the first round and stood second in the runoff polls, accused the election commission of committing fraud and siding with his opponent Ghani Ahmadzai, and vowed not to accept the results unless the votes were recounted.

To solve the impasse, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has visited Kabul twice since July and held meetings with the two presidential hopefuls.

He was able to broker a deal between them under which the winner would become president and the loser chief executive, a post equal to that of prime minister in a national unity government.

Leaders of the two electoral teams have held a series of meetings on formation of the national unity government, but have so far failed to reach an agreement on the authorities of the chief executive in the proposed establishment.

"The opponent team intentionally is taking the political process on formation of unity government to deadlock which will eventually take the country towards crisis," a spokesman for Abdullah's team Fazal Rahman Orya was quoted as saying by local media.

Orya, according to local media, once again lashed at the election commission over what he termed "giving legitimacy to fraud in the election process" and warned that the result of the fraud-marred elections will not be acceptable.

Meanwhile, amid Afghans' demand for early announcement of the election's results, a former presidential candidate Abdul Rab Rassoul Sayaf has warned that announcing election results prior to reaching an agreement between the two presidential candidates would take the country towards crisis.