Candidates demand reelection under interim set-up

KABUL (Pajhwok): The Council of Presidential Candidates on Tuesday rejected what they called ‘fraudulent election results’ and called for a national partnership government to conduct the vote again.

Presidential candidate Enayatullah Hafiz told a press conference here that even a number of Independent Election Commission (IEC) members did not agree with the election results and the people will never accept such an outcome.

He said their council opposed the IEC’s performance and decisions before the announcement of the election results. He said the preliminary results had flaws and were full of fraud.

Hafiz suggested Ashraf Ghani, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah and the Taliban should establish a partnership government and rescue the country from crisis.

Another candidate, Ahmad Wali Massoud, said that the presidential election process had been fraudulent from the day one and the results announced were not acceptable to them.

“If teams that committed fraud win the election, people will lose their trust in the democratic process and will not participate in future elections,” he said.

Shahab Hakimi, another candidate, said that transparent elections were impossible until peace was established in the country.

He said the Council of Presidential Candidates in the past had suggested establishment of an interim government.

Hakimi said he would not register his complaints with the Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) because he did not trust it.

A number of other candidates held similar views and said they would not accept fraudulent results.

The preliminary election results were announced three days ago, declaring Ashraf Ghani the winner.

Mds/ma

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