Afghan Election Commission Resolves Technical Issues, Resumes Vote Count - Official

KABUL (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th October, 2019) Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IEC) has resolved the technical issues which caused a delay in counting and announcing the results of the Afghan presidential election, but no new date has been given for the announcement, IEC chief Habibur Rahman Nang said Thursday.

"A total of one million, nine hundred and thirty thousand biometrics ballots have been used, the ballots have been entered into the system, and after processing, we will know how many clean votes there are and the results will be announced," Nang said at a news conference in Kabul.

The announcement of the election results was scheduled for October 19 but was delayed for technical reasons, according to the Bakhtar state news agency.

The issue, which reportedly involved the transfer of election data to the IEC server, has now been solved and election commission officials are now reviewing figures to eliminate any margin of error, according to Nang.

A source within the IEC told Sputnik that the commission is expecting to sift out around 40,000 false votes, which may increase the chances of a second round of elections.

The Afghan presidential election, held on September 28, was dogged by low turnout and security fears. Several candidates accused rivals of voter fraud and coercion after the ballots closed, causing the IEC to announce that it wants to be doubly certain of the accuracy of the vote before revealing the results.