The results. Afghanistan is looking more like an oligarchic than a democratic system. According to the results, which came through in the late afternoon of 18 February – 143 days, almost five months, after election day – Ghani received 923,592 votes … So now the Afghan Election Commission says there is … Even though Afghan law does not set a minimum threshold on turnout and stipulates that only one vote above 50 per cent is sufficient for a candidate to be declared a first-round winner, with his razor-thin margin, and the prospect of a second parallel government (in addition to the Taleban’s), Ghani’s mandate looks shakier then ever.An even graver long-term problem is that this election has showed just how much Afghanistan’s political system is stuck in a dead-end. Afghanistan’s 2019 Elections (30): Final results… and parallel governments? Polls have closed in Afghanistan's presidential election, the fourth since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. The discussion about whether the election should have been held in the first place (and democratic procedures at least formally upheld) or dropped in favour of an elusive peace and an ‘interim government’ – largely prompted by US Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad – only further undermined the legitimacy of Afghanistan’s constitutional institutions. Ghani was head of Kabul University until he joined President Hamid Karzai's government as finance minister.In 2010, he led the lengthy process to transfer security of the country from U.S.-led coalition forces to the Afghanistan National Security Forces, which took effect in 2014.To encourage thoughtful and respectful conversations, first and last names will appear with each submission to CBC/Radio-Canada's online communities (except in children and youth-oriented communities). As AAN has pointed out virtually every time it has written about these elections, missing data, a paucity of statistics and confusing information have characterised the IEC’s communications with the Afghan public and observers. Time will show justice to all of these injustices done. Indeed, it feels like there is no breathing space for newcomers; potential young leaders are simply co-opted, and the old guard, the surviving mujahedin leaders (‘warlords’) remain as influential as ever. Council of Presidential Candidates Calls to Annul Election Result. However, this does not mean it was so clean – and the electoral institutions so well-functioning and independent – that all the major players are ready to accept the declared winner.As in previous elections, procedures began to crumble when the time came to take the decisions that would make the difference between who won and who lost, and whether there was need of a run-off or not. A leaked The Afghan media indirectly confirmed these differences of opinion, reporting a “lack of coordination” between the two commissions, including a no-show of the ECC (according to the IEC) or a missing invitation (according to the ECC) which led to a delay in the start of the As soon as it was clear that the IEC would announce the result on Tuesday 18 February, and with rumours circulating in Kabul that the preliminary result would not change and Ghani be declared a first-round winner, that same day Fazal Ahmad Manawi, the head of Abdullah’s campaign team and a former IEC chief, declared on Twitter (quoted On the same evening, Dr Abdullah proclaimed himself the winner of the election in a press conference. Unresolved shortcomings in the methodology of validating or invalidating ballots culminated in the dispute over what turned out to be the decisive 300,000 votes. Thousands of his supporters rallied against what they said were fake ballots.

Afghanistan: 270 inmates on the run after Isis prison attackIslamic State attack on Afghanistan prison kills at least 29 peopleMoD asked why it withheld evidence on 33 suspected Afghan civilian executionsBomb attack kills two human rights workers in Kabul'Where are the women?' It finally ruled that all of these disputed votes were valid (see An election watchdog organisation, Transparent Election Foundation of Afghanistan (TEFA), The ECC also seemed to have been unhappy with the way the IEC carried out the audits and recounts. In the first round Abdullah was ahead with 45.00 per cent of the votes; Ghani had 31.56 per cent.