KABUL - Preliminary results show that incumbent president Ashraf Ghani has secured 50.64 percent of votes in the election held on September 28, the Independent Election Commission announced Sunday.
A total of 1,824,401 votes were cast in the election, IEC chief Hawa Alam Nuristani said at a press conference.
Ghani won 923,868 (50.64%) votes, she said.
Abdullah Abdullah followed with 720,990 (39.52%) votes and he quickly rejected the results as "fraudulent."
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar came third with 70, 243 votes (3.85%).
IEC chief said that candidates and their representatives have three days to lodge their complaints with the Electoral Complaints Commission.
UNAMA in a statement welcomed the announcement.
“On 28 September 2019, the citizens of Afghanistan braved security threats to cast their votes for a better future; those voters deserve to be commended for carrying out their civic duty,” said Tadamichi Yamamoto, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan. “Now, all Afghan authorities and actors must demonstrate their commitment to safeguard and complete the election, and to protect the integrity of the final stage of the process.”
Yamamoto added: “Any decisions taken by the electoral management bodies in the final stage of the process must have clear legal and technical justifications and should be explained to the people of Afghanistan in clear terms.”
“All candidates have the chance to raise any concerns they may have through the appropriate mechanism and within the prescribed time, in accordance with the relevant legal frameworks, regulations and procedures,” said Yamamoto. “At the same time, the ECC has an obligation to adjudicate any complaints it receives transparently and thoroughly so the election process may conclude in a credible manner.”
Other candidates:
Rahmatullah Nabil - 33,921 (1.86%)
Faramarz Tamana - 18,066 (0.99%)
Syed Noorullah Jalili - 15,526 (0.85%)
Abdul Latif Pedram - 12,608 (0.19%)
Enayatullah Hafiz - 11,374 (0.62%)
Mohammad Hakim Torsan - 6,504 (0.36%)
Ahmad Wali Massoud - 3,942 (0.22%)
Mohammad Shahab Hakimi - 3,324 (0.18%)
Ghulam Farooq Nijrabi 1,606 (0.09%)
Noor Rahman Lewal 865 (0.05%)