Front-runners each claim victory

Final results not until Nov 7

KABUL, Sept 30, (RTRS): The front-runners for Afghanistan’s presidency, incumbent President Ashraf Ghani and chief executive Abdullah Abdullah, have both declared victory, echoing an election crisis five years ago when competing claims by the two men led to months of turmoil.

Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission is gathering votes from Saturday’s election. If no candidate wins more than half, a runoff vote would be held between the top two.

“Our votes are the highest in the election, and the election will not go to the second round,” Abdullah said at a press conference in Kabul on Monday.

Ghani’s running mate Amrullah Saleh said on Sunday that Ghani had won a clear first-ballot victory, without offering evidence.

“The information that we have received show that 60 to 70% of people voted (for) us,” Saleh was quoted by news outlet VOA as saying in a story on its website.

Ghani and Abdullah were also the top two candidates in the last election in 2014, leading to months of turmoil as both men accused each other of fraud. The United States finally stepped in, brokering a powersharing deal under which Ghani became president and Abdullah accepted the new post of chief executive.

Abdullah was also involved in a months-long election dispute in 2009 when he challenged the victory of then-incumbent Hamid Karzai. Afghan presidential candidates have a pattern of assembling competing coalitions of regional and ethnic chieftains, and accusing rival camps of organising fraud in far-flung districts under the control of their supporters.

Commission

The chief executive of the electoral commission, Habiburrahman Nang, told a press conference that no candidate had the right to declare himself the winner before the results are tallied.

Preliminary results are not expected before Oct 19 and final results not until Nov 7.

Abdullah said on Monday he would accept only votes that were filed with biometric voter verification. Problems with scanning machines had led the commission to also accept votes without scanning fingerprints.

Foreign countries that have troops in Afghanistan are wary of yet another destabilising election dispute.

Boasting of victory before the election commission has even counted votes is unhelpful, said Czech Republic Ambassador to Afghanistan Petr Stepanek, whose country has 350 soldiers in the US-led NATO force that supports the government.

“It’s pushing the election commission into murky water. (The candidates) should respect the institutions,” Stepanek said in an interview.

The winner would have a stronger position to conduct any negotiations with the Taleban aimed at ending the country’s 18-year war.

Tight security ensured the election on Saturday was conducted in relative calm, with only small-scale attacks by the Taliban.

At least 2.2 million people voted, with more votes to be gathered, the commission said on Sunday.

Ballot boxes are being transported from remote areas to Kabul for counting. The process can be dangerous.

Thirteen election staff members have been kidnapped since Saturday by the Taleban, and 11 others were wounded on election day, election commission spokesman Abdul Aziz Ibrahimi said.

The Taleban said on Saturday that the low turnout underlined that the election was illegitimate and that Afghan people do not accept “foreign imported processes.”

Leading

The militant group threatened attacks leading up to election day, causing many voters to stay home.

“Turnout appears to have been dampened not just by Taleban threats, but also voter disinterest,” wrote Thomas Ruttig and Jelena Bjelica of the Afghanistan Analysts Network.

In the last presidential election in 2014, roughly 7 million turned out to vote, though widespread fraud tainted the election and results were never declared.

Ahead of Saturday’s poll, Taleban fighters attacked several polling stations across the country to try to derail the process, but intense security prevented largescale violence.

There were more than 400 attacks, mostly smallscale, carried out by the militants, according to the Afghanistan Analysts Network.

Many Afghans still braved the threat of militant attacks to vote in an election seen as a major test of the Western-backed government’s ability to protect democracy against Taleban attempts to derail it.

Over a dozen candidates are vying for the presidency, led by incumbent Ashraf Ghani and his former deputy Abdullah Abdullah.

The Afghanistan Analysts Network said there were also technical shortcomings in the vote including biometric devices not working, missing voter names and election material sent to the wrong province.

As many as eight election staff were kidnapped on Saturday evening by the Taleban in central Parwan province’s Shinwari district, the provincial governor’s spokeswoman said.

“The local government and tribal elders are working to release them,” she said on Sunday.

Two policeman and one civilian were killed in mostly small-scale Taleban attacks, and 37 people were injured, the interior ministry said.

Previous elections were marred by dozens of deaths, accusations of fraud and allegations that the election commission was not independent. Memories of those issues hung over Saturday’s vote.

The days after voting are also fraught. The Taleban often attack those transporting ballot boxes from local voting centres to larger regional offices for counting. From there, the boxes make their way to the capital Kabul.