The Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Monday completed the partial audit of the 300,000 disputed votes, a decision which was made by the Independent Electoral Complaints Commission after weeks of assessments.
The next step is to match the information of recounted and audited votes with those in the Kabul database and then the results will be announced, according to election commissioners.
“We will send our report to the commission’s board based on the law, and this board will make a decision on it,” said Habib Rahman Nang, the head of the IEC secretariat.
One member of the commission, Mohammad Haneef Danishyar, said the final results will be announced this week.
“I can say that surely we will announce the final results within the next three to four days,” he added.
In some provinces, according to observers, the audit process was done without the presence of Abdullah Abdullah’s campaign team members.
According to the special audit, if 65% of the disputed votes meet the characteristics of transparent votes, all the disputed votes will be validated, but if more than 35% of the votes do not complete the measure, all the disputed votes will be recounted – once again.
“The electoral complaints commission has not attended the audit process here and this is the responsibility of the election commission and we will not interfere in this respect,” said Shafiullah Matiee, deputy head of IEC office in Nangarhar.
“Some observers from TEFA (Transparent Election Foundation of Afghanistan) and FEFA (Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan), and a representative of the Human Rights Commission were present here,” said Hamidullah Baloch, head of the IEC office in Badakhshan.
According to some election observers, the controversy surrounding the audit is concerning.
“This situation is concerning, and it can challenge the elections,” said Yusuf Rasheed, head of Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan.
Based on the preliminary results that were announced late last December, incumbent President Ashraf Ghani was narrowly declared the winner while Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah got 39% of a total of over 1.8 million votes.