Partial results from April 5 polls delayed

KABUL (Pajhwok): With presidential candidates and their supporters waiting impatiently, the release of partial results from last weekend’s presidential elections has been delayed by a day, an official said on Saturday.

On Friday, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) said result sheets from various provinces had reached the commission’s main office and some partial results were likely to be released on Saturday.

IEC officials had been discussing throughout Saturday that how much partial results they should release until 4pm or 6pm, but at the end, they decided to delay the release until Sunday.

Around 4pm, IEC Secretary Ziaul Haq Amarkhel told Pajhwok Afghan News the announcement of partial results had been delayed until tomorrow.

“We took this decision at our meeting today that the release of partial results be delayed until tomorrow,” he said, but stopped short of going into details.

More than seven million people out of 13 million eligible voters, including 35 percent women, cast their votes on April 5 despite security challenges.

The IEC says it had received more than 3000 complaints about fraud and other irregularities in the elections and a probe into them is underway.

April 24 has been set as the date to announce preliminary results while the final results are expected on May 14 after all complaints are investigated.

Two presidential hopefuls — Dr Ashraf Ghani and Dr Abdullah Abdullah — claim to be leading the race from the votes counted so far.

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