Afghan president wins a second term, final results confirm
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Roshan Amiri
- . February 20, 2020
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. Update: February 20, 2020 8:01 pm
- 1,156 Views
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Afghan President Ashraf Ghani won a second term, according to the elections final results held on September 28, 2019, and published by the Electoral Commission on Tuesday.
"The election commission ... announces Mr. Ashraf Ghani, who won 50.64 percent of the votes, as president of Afghanistan," commission chair Hawa Alam Nuristani told a news conference in Kabul.
She added: "May God help him to serve the Afghan people ... I also pray that peace will come to our country."
The issuance of the results was postponed for about 5 months, after the head of the Executive Authority, Abdullah Abdullah, a prominent rival of Ghani, spoke about fraud, which necessitated a recount.
The delay put Afghanistan in a political crisis at a time when the United States is seeking to conclude an agreement with the Taliban, leading to the withdrawal of American forces in exchange for several security guarantees, and pledged that the rebels will hold peace talks with the Afghan government.
The Abdullah team confirmed earlier this week that it would not accept any fraudulent results. He also threatened Afghan Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum, Abdullah's ally, to form a parallel government if he announced fraudulent results in the elections.
Abdullah lost to Ghani in 2014 in divisive elections, which saw the United States intervene to sponsor a one of a kind agreement to share power between the two opponents.
A million of 2.7 million votes were canceled due to irregularities, which means that elections have so far witnessed the lowest turnout in any ballot in Afghanistan.
In the end, only 1.8 million votes were counted, which is a very small number compared to Afghanistan's 35 million population and total registered voters (9.6 million).
