Abdullah threatens to pull out of Afghan election audit
27 Aug 2014 10:59 PM GMT
Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah threatened on Tuesday to withdraw from an audit of votes cast in the election, a move that could wreck UN efforts to rescue the country’s first democratic transfer of power.
The June 14 election has triggered a standoff between Abdullah and his poll rival Ashraf Ghani, with both candidates claiming victory amid allegations of massive fraud.To end the impasse, a deal was brokered for an audit of all eight million votes to remove fraudulent ballots, and for the formation of
a national unity government under whoever becomes the next president.
But with the audit entering its final stages, Abdullah’s campaign team ignored pleas from the United Nations and the United States to allow the process to be completed and then to respect the outcome.
‘If they accept our demands by on Wednesday morning we will continue the process. If not, we will withdraw from the process and consider it finished,’ Fazel Ahmad Manawi, a senior member of Abdullah’s campaign team, told reporters.
‘Such a process is not acceptable for us and has no value.’ He said Abdullah’s demands over how fraudulent votes should be thrown out had been ignored.
Abdullah won the eight-candidate first-round election in April, but preliminary results in the June run-off vote showed he had fallen well behind Ghani.
On Monday, the invalidation stage of the audit finally began -- but Manawi dismissed it as ‘a joke’.
‘The sites we had asked to be invalidated were not considered,’ he said.
‘We boycotted the audit once or twice before and they asked us to come back, but they have never listened to our demands. ‘The audit has confirmed that there has been widespread fraud in the election.’
The country has been in paralysis for months due to the election to choose the successor to President Hamid Karzai, who will step down as US-led NATO troops prepare to end their 13-year war against Taliban insurgents.
On Monday 3,644 of the 23,000 ballot boxes were put through the invalidation process. Only 74 boxes were thrown out, with 697 selected for a further recount.
‘It is still premature to draw conclusions about the final audit result based on these initial findings,’ UN mission chief Jan Kubis said in a statement late on Monday.‘All parties should continue to respect the process so as to not create unrealistic expectations.’
The June 14 election has triggered a standoff between Abdullah and his poll rival Ashraf Ghani, with both candidates claiming victory amid allegations of massive fraud.To end the impasse, a deal was brokered for an audit of all eight million votes to remove fraudulent ballots, and for the formation of
a national unity government under whoever becomes the next president.
But with the audit entering its final stages, Abdullah’s campaign team ignored pleas from the United Nations and the United States to allow the process to be completed and then to respect the outcome.
‘If they accept our demands by on Wednesday morning we will continue the process. If not, we will withdraw from the process and consider it finished,’ Fazel Ahmad Manawi, a senior member of Abdullah’s campaign team, told reporters.
‘Such a process is not acceptable for us and has no value.’ He said Abdullah’s demands over how fraudulent votes should be thrown out had been ignored.
Abdullah won the eight-candidate first-round election in April, but preliminary results in the June run-off vote showed he had fallen well behind Ghani.
On Monday, the invalidation stage of the audit finally began -- but Manawi dismissed it as ‘a joke’.
‘The sites we had asked to be invalidated were not considered,’ he said.
‘We boycotted the audit once or twice before and they asked us to come back, but they have never listened to our demands. ‘The audit has confirmed that there has been widespread fraud in the election.’
The country has been in paralysis for months due to the election to choose the successor to President Hamid Karzai, who will step down as US-led NATO troops prepare to end their 13-year war against Taliban insurgents.
On Monday 3,644 of the 23,000 ballot boxes were put through the invalidation process. Only 74 boxes were thrown out, with 697 selected for a further recount.
‘It is still premature to draw conclusions about the final audit result based on these initial findings,’ UN mission chief Jan Kubis said in a statement late on Monday.‘All parties should continue to respect the process so as to not create unrealistic expectations.’
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