Presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah urged the Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Sunday to stop the vote recount, and called the process “illegal.”

"The IEC decided that only the biometric votes will be counted, so if there is no data for other votes, they must not be counted," said Abdullah at a gathering in Kabul.

"In recent days, decisions have been made and that is why we are here to announce our next decision over the election process," Abdullah said. "There is discussion over 300,000 votes—are they valid or not? Are they real votes or not?” he asked.

According to Abdullah's team, “over 300,000 fraudulent votes” will not be acceptable under any circumstances.

He also said that his team will send a letter to the IEC about the issue, and that his campaign leaders "will ask our observers not to participate in the recounting process. The vote should be clear before there is a recount.”

He mentioned that the system shows that the voting process started the night before the election started.

He told the gathering that if the IEC does not meet the demands of his team, they “will make another move," but added “it will be peaceful, as always."

 “Every Afghan wants transparency and the people don't want a fraudulent election result,” he said.

Abdullah also said: "I assure you that I will defend the people's valid votes, and their rights.”

Abdullah’s team has specified four categories of fraudulent votes:

•    137,630 votes which are under server quarantine.

•    102,012 votes which were cast before or after election day.

•    Votes validated by duplicate photos or photos of photos.

•    Votes from 700 devices and memory cards that were lost.

The presidential elections were held on Sept. 28, and the announcement of the preliminary results was originally scheduled for October 19, But the announcement was delayed due to technical issues and because further actions were necessary to “maintain transparency.”