KABUL - The First Vice President, Mohammad Yunus Qanuni and the top Afghan army commanders from five zones of Afghanistan got together at the Ministry of Defense in Kabul on Sunday to discuss the security for the June 14 presidential elections.

"The enemies were defeated in the first round and now they will try to destabilize the [runoff] process," Qanuni said. "The holding of a successful election is more important than the winner."

The Minister of Defense Gen. Bismillah Mohammadi assured for a secure Election Day, stating that the Afghan security forces have "passed the exam in the first round and will provide even better security than the first round."

Gen. Mohammadi said the Afghan forces will start their investigation of the insecure areas in the next two weeks.

"After the announcement of the final results by the IEC and the official call to a second round of elections, we decided to start investigating insecure areas in the upcoming weeks," Gen. Mohammadi said. "We will share our findings with the electoral commission."

On Thursday, the IEC announced that a second round of elections will commence between leading candidates Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai.

The IEC Chief Ahmad Yousuf Nuristani last week at the press conference in Kabul said that none of the candidates received over 50 percent of votes to avoid a runoff.

From the total 7,018,849 votes casted, Dr. Abdullah led the final results with 2,973,706 votes making up 45 percent of the total votes as Dr. Ahmadzai trailed in with 31.6 percent totaling 2,084,547 votes.

Zalmai Rassoul was in third with 11.4 percent, Abdul Rab Rassoul Sayyaf coming in fourth with 7.0 percent, Qutbuddin Helal carrying 2.8 percent, Gul Agha Sherzai with 1.6 percent, Daoud Sultanzoy with 0.5 percent and Hedayat Amin Arsala coming in last with 0.2 percent.

The IEC has been in contact with security officials to ensure heavy security during the runoff. (Tolonews)