Abdullah’s new warning puts elections in peril

KABUL (Pajhwok): The Reform and Unanimity team, led by presidential candidate Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, on Monday warned it would withdraw from the political process if its demands were not met by Tuesday.

A spokesman for the Abdullah campaign, Fazal Sanchakari, told reporters in Kabul that they were running out of patience and gave a deadline until tomorrow.

Meanwhile, one of Abdullah’s running mates Mohammad Mohaqeq told a foreign news agency that the Abdullah campaign would go to the people and let them decide on a further course of action if Ashraf Ghani was declared winner.

“Announcing the results based on fraudulent means endangers the whole process and takes the country deeper into crisis. It is in no one’s interest. It will divide Afghanistan,” he said.

He said the Ghani campaign was behaving as if they had won the election and were trying to water down the power-sharing arrangement the two leaders signed during US Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit last month.  Mohaqeq said Ghani viewed the chief executive role as nothing more than a symbolic position.

Sanchakari said Abdullah’s team believed the national unity government could be formed only when the vote audit was processed in a transparent manner before announcing the final result.

He said they would not accept the results if the audit continued the way it was being carried out.

He said they sincerely joined the vote audit and discussions on the national unity government with the rival team, but they were cheated in both the cases, something he said was intolerable to them anymore.

“We have set a deadline for tomorrow, if our logical demands are not paid attention, and the audit process continues in the same manner, we will boycott both the political and audit processes,” Snacharaki warned.

He said Abdullah’s team was loyal to a transparent vote audit to defend people’s rights. “We will form a national unity government with those having won real votes, not with those involved in fraud and telling lies, because it will amount to betraying the Afghans,” he added.

Sancharaki said if their demands were not listened to, they would make a strong decision and will go to the people to take a decision on their own.

He called those involved in fraud the main reason of the current economic and security problems which had recently increased in the country.

The warning from Abdullah’s camp comes as the vote audit enters its final stage.

The Independent Election Commission (IEC) said that the recount process would be final in a few days and the final result would be announced shortly.

IEC spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor on Sunday said more than 86 percent of all 23,000 votes had been audited so far.

mds/ma

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