Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan’s chief executive and presidential candidate
Kabul… News time
Afghanistan’s chief executive and presidential candidate, Abdullah Abdullah, withdrew his election observers before the ballot count due to a long postponement of election results. According to a report by the news agency AP, Abdullah Abdullah promised that if his team was not present during the re-counting, there would be no legal status for the elections.
On the other hand, the current president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, has not yet called back his election observers, but other presidential candidates have expressed frustration over the delay in the re-counting process. It should be noted that there were polls on September 28 for the presidential seat in Afghanistan, but the results were postponed several times after allegations of corruption and technical issues during ballot counting. Preliminary results are expected on November 14.
It should be remembered that the presidential elections in Afghanistan were held in 2014, before which the dispute arose. And in the result, there was a thorny contest between Ashraf Ghani and another candidate, Abdullah Abdullah, and the votes were cast for the second time. Abdullah Abdullah threatened protests across the country, accusing him of widespread fraud before the election results were announced. The then US Secretary of State John Kerry had intervened and reconciled the two candidates and at the same time urged the Election Commission to withhold the results, however, Ashraf Ghani’s chances of winning were bright. Ashraf Ghani was given the post of President and Abdullah Abdullah as the country’s chief executive after John Kerry’s intervention.
It is to be remembered that a few days ago, after the 17-year war against the Taliban, the US announced half of its troops from Afghanistan and now with the postponement of the presidential election, the United States has more time to advance the peace process in Afghanistan. Zalmay Khalilzad, US representative to Afghanistan said that we want the Taliban and the Afghan government to create a path for reconciliation ahead of the April elections in Afghanistan.
