Afghanistan Declares Ghani as President-elect

Kabul (PNA/Xinhua) — Afghan Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Sunday declared Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai as the new president of Afghanistan, the IEC chief Ahmad Yousuf Nuristani said.

“Since we Afghans do not have computerized ID card, we do not have the statistic of eligible voters, we still have security problems therefore it is difficult to have a fair elections,” Nuristani told reporters.

He said following the audit conducted by the IEC and supervised by the United Nations, “the IEC announced that 11,945 polling stations’ results were declared valid, 1,260 polling stations were invalidated and 9,677 boxes recounted. And afterward, after reaching deal between the two candidates, the IEC announces Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai as new president of Afghanistan.”

“Therefore, the election process comes to an end,” Nuristani said.

Nuristani also congratulated Ghani Ahmadzai as Afghanistan’s new president and Abdullah Abdullah as chief executive, a post equals that of prime minister in the national unity government, agreed upon by candidates.

The announcement came hours after Ghani and his rival Abdullah Abdullah signed an agreement on structure of national unity government, ending the months-long election deadlock.

Afghanistan’s third presidential election since the fall of Taliban regime was held on April 5 but since none of the eight candidates secured more than 50 percent of the votes, a runoff was conducted between front-runners Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani on June 14.

Earlier on the day, the spokespersons for Ghani and Abudullah announced that the inauguration of the new government will take place by the end of the month, possibly on Sept. 29. (PNA/Xinhua) CTB/RSM

Image Credit: www.chinadailyasia.com