Afghan prez poll votes to be recounted in 18 provinces

Afghanistan's Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) said that votes cast during the September 2019 presidential election in 1,645 polling stations across 18 provinces, will be recounted from Saturday.

On Thursday, Mohammad Qasim Elyasi, IECC spokesman, said that most of the polling stations that needed recounting were located in Nangarhar, Kunar and Nimroz, TOLO News reported.

Elyasi said the recounting process was being done for various reasons including suspicious ballots and the revocation of votes without a reason.

The IECC added that eight other provinces were currently under investigation.

The IECC has less than two weeks to finalize the results of the complaints and share their work with the Independent Election Commission.

The preliminary results were supposed to be announced on October 19, 2019 but they were delayed following audit and recount of votes amid reports of irregularities.

Under the Afghan law, final results cannot be announced until serious complaints are adjudicated.

Thursday's development comes after it was announced last month incumbent President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani was leading the preliminary results of the September 28 election by 50.64 per cent.

Ghani's main rival and his Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah had secured 39.52 per cent of the votes, followed by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of Hizb-e-Islami of Afghanistan, with 3.85 per cent.

Fourteen out of the 18 registered hopefuls contested for the presidency with a five-year term in the polls held on September 28.