The Independent Election Commission (IEC) announced the preliminary results of the Sept. 28 presidential vote after a three-month-long delay based on which President Ghani has won reelection by a hair’s breadth, netting 50.64 percent of the total over 1.8 million biometric votes. However, questions about the transparency of results as well as the large volume of complaints lodged by various presidential teams bolster a concern that the final results may see a radical change after adjudication of the complaints by the Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC), thereby pushing the election to the second round to be held between the two top contenders.
According to electoral laws, the candidates have three days to lodge complaints with IECC about the results. On the first day, the Stability and Convergence team led by Chief Executive Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, who rejected the outcome as “fraudulent”, has registered over 4,000 complaints about the preliminary results. Abdullah’s team, which had also boycotted the vote recount and audit process, is calling for invalidation of at least 300,000 votes that his team describes as either non-biometric or cast outside the official voting time.
In the meantime, IEC is also divided over the preliminary results. Following the announcement of the results, Maulana Abdullah, an election commissioner, has acknowledged in a letter addressed to IECC that the preliminary results were beset by legal and technical issues, calling on the commission to investigate all complaints with utter neutrality and independence, separate genuine and fraudulent votes, and evaluate the results.
Even though it took IEC three months to release the preliminary results, there are still questions and concerns about the transparency of the results. The registration of 4,000 complaints just by one team indicates that the possibility of a sea change in the final results cannot be ruled out. If IECC invalidates more votes as in previous elections based on complaints or any other considerations, a run-off becomes inevitable. Given the huge number of invalided votes in previous presidential elections, it is highly likely that the electoral complaints commission may nullify President Ghani’s votes as much as his overall votes fall short of the “50% +1 vote” threshold necessary to be declared winner of the election, thereby making the second round unavoidable. The likelihood of such a scenario stands high, as Americans also prefer it since they are not sure if President Ghani, if reelected, will be ready and willing to step down in case the ongoing peace talks between Americans and the Taliban succeed.