Abdullah Questions IEC’s Neutrality

Abdullah said his team will make every effort to prevent the formation of “an illegal government.”
“Those people who committed fraud in 2014 might think they can do it again, but it won’t happen,” said Abdullah.
Without directly naming Ashraf Ghani’s electoral team, Abdullah said that one campaign “spent huge amounts of money during the election, bullied, and used any means available,” but the election result was very clear.”
On Tuesday, Abdullah’s campaign team called for the invalidation of 300,000 disputed votes. Otherwise, they said, they will oppose the vote recount process.
The team also warned that they will launch widespread protests if the 300,000 votes are not excluded from the “clean” votes by Saturday, November 30.
The 300,000 disputed votes are from over 8,400 polling stations, which, according to the Election Commission, should be recounted. But, so far, only around 2,000 of the polling stations have been recounted.
Some election campaign teams are protesting against the recounting of votes in seven provinces in the northern and northeastern provinces.
Abdullah’s campaign team said they have 50.9% of the total votes and they are the winner of the presidential elections if the fraudulent/disputed votes are excluded.
They warned that they will not allow anyone to govern in Afghanistan after coming to power by fraudulent votes.
Ghani’s team rejected the allegations and said Abdullah’s team has created a hurdle for vote recount.
“Their victory is related to invalidating people’s votes, the invalidation which does not have any basis or principles,” Ghani’s campaigner Daud Sultanzoi said.
The Election Commission spokesman Haqparast said announcing victory ahead of the results is illegal.
“The Election Commission will announce its decision and will find another option if the government does not provide the grounds for implementing the electoral process,” he said, referring to disturbances hindering the recount process.