Afghanistan's election crisis deepened Sunday as the two presidential candidates sparred over the release of preliminary results and calls mounted for a broader investigation of suspect ballots amid allegations of massive fraud, according to Reuters.
Abdullah Abdullah, who garnered the most votes in the first round of voting on April 5 but failed to get the majority needed to win outright, has boycotted the electoral institutions after alleging widespread ballot box stuffing and other efforts to rig the June 14 runoff vote against him, Reuters reported.
His rival Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai. Ahmadzai, a former finance minister and World Bank official, also filed complaints of irregularities in the balloting but has insisted that the agreed-upon counting process be respected and said any further delays in releasing results would be unacceptable, according to Reuters.
Preliminary results had been due on Wednesday, but the Independent Election Commission postponed them for five days saying it needed to audit votes from nearly 2,000 of 23,000 polling stations nationwide, Reuters reported.
Commission chairman Ahmad Yousuf Nouristani said Sunday the announcement would be made Monday as planned, although a time had yet to be announced, according to Reuters. Abdullah said Sunday that he would not accept any results until all fraudulent votes were invalidated, adding that a more extensive investigation into suspicious ballots, including cases where more than 93 percent of the ballots in a single box were for a single candidate.
"What we are asking for is . an audit and after the completion of the audit before the announcement of the preliminary results should be made," Abdullah said Sunday at a news conference, Reuters reported. "There is no doubt that fraud has happened, massive fraud has happened. After all suspicious areas are audited, we will accept the election results, but not before that."
According to the election commission's official timetable, final results will be released on July 22. with Aug. 2 as the date for the new president to be inaugurated, according to Reuters,
