ISLAMABAD, December 23: Pakistan on Monday welcomed the announcement of preliminary results of the Afghan Presidential elections held on Sept. 28, 2019.
Chairperson of the Afghan Independent Election Commission Hawa Alam Nuristani announced on Sunday that incumbent President Ashraf Ghani secured 50.64 percent of the votes and his close rival Abdullah Abdullah got 39.52 percent of the votes in the election process.
Afghanistan’s fourth presidential election since the collapse of Taliban
rule in late 2001 was held on Sept 28, but the initial result was announced after nearly three months amid criticism by rival candidates and political circles.
The Foreign Office welcomed the announcement of the results and noted that the final results would be announced after completion of adjudication process within the stipulated time as per Afghan electoral laws.
We support Afghanistan’s democratic process and acknowledge that completion of Afghan presidential elections is a crucial step for political stability of Afghanistan and South Asian region, a foreign ministry statement said.
More than 9.4 million eligible voters registered to vote in the presidential polls, but the turnout, according to Nuristani, was some 2.7 million votes and out of these nearly 1.9 million votes had been counted as legitimate and the remaining declared null due to alleged fraud. NNI
