Afghan citizens at a gathering in Kabul on Friday expressed anger over the delay in the announcement of the final results of the presidential elections, which were held on September 28 last year.

They said that the election stalemate has left a significant impact on the country’s political and security situation.

“If the election commission does not announce the results, then we will not have any option except to go to the door of the election commission and raise our voice,” said Attaulhaq, a resident in Kabul.

“We call on the electoral complaints commission to investigate the election process and share the results with the election commission as soon as possible,” said Farahuddin, a resident in Kabul.

On December 22, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) announced the preliminary results of the elections.

Based on the preliminary results, President Ashraf Ghani, who leads the State Building election campaign, had earned 923,868 votes and 50.64% .

Abdullah Abdullah followed with 720,990 votes and 39.52%, the IEC announced.

But Abdullah refused to accept the results.

Later on, the Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) started the process of auditing and registering  electoral complaints.

The IECC registered 16,400 complaints around the elections and promised to investigate and verify all complaints in a transparent way.

The IECC also promised to issue its decision on the 300,000 disputed votes.

Finally, on January 5,  the IECC decided to send a small percentage of the 300,000 disputed votes for a special audit.

But on Thursday,  the verdict by the (IECC) to send a small percentage of the 300,000 disputed votes for a special audit was met with backlash by a number of campaign teams.

Critics said that the decision to send a small percentage of the 300,000 disputed votes for a special audit was made under domestic and international pressure.

The IEC has said that it is fully prepared to cooperate with the IECC regarding the issue of special audits of the votes.

“The analysis and verification committee has wrapped up its preliminary work and the secretariat is fully prepared to act upon the IECC’s decisions—across the country--for the verification and recounting of votes,” said Mirza Mohammad Haqparast, a spokesman for the IEC.

However, many political parties and election observers have said that neither the IECC nor the IEC have the ability to undertake the management and leadership of the election process.

“Overall, the commissions are very weak: there is doubt, they act amateurish, they were very weak and they have even confessed their weakness,” said Mohammad Natiqi, a member of Abdullah’s Stability and Convergence team.

“This has been a very vague decision and it further prolongs the elections and will not be resolved to anyone’s satisfaction,” said Ahmad Zubair Habibzada, a spokesman for the Transparent Election Foundation of Afghanistan (TEFA).

“Our expectation from the Independent Election Commission is to share the result of this conclusion with the Afghan people,” said Sayed Baqir Kazemi, a spokesman for Abdullah’s State Building campaign.