Parallel governments in Afghanistan as both presidential candidates say they won
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Afghan presidential election challenger Abdullah Abdullah contested results that declared incumbent President Ashraf Ghani the winner of a September presidential poll, vowing to form a parallel government.
“Our team, based on clean and biometric votes, is the victor and we declare our victory. The fraudsters are the shame of history and we announce our inclusive government,” Abdullah said at a press conference in Kabul.
On Tuesday, Afghan election officials said final results showed he had won 39.52 percent of last September’s vote while Ghani had taken 50.64 percent, above the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid another run-off.
“The election commission … declares Mr Ashraf Ghani, who has won 50.64 percent of the votes, as the president of Afghanistan,” election commission chief Hawa Alam Nuristani told a press conference in Kabul.
Abdullah Abdullah nevertheless said he and his allies had won the election and would form the government.
The results had been delayed for nearly five months after allegations of vote-rigging from Ghani’s main rival, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, forced a recount.
The delay left Afghanistan facing a political crisis just as the US seeks a deal with the Taliban that would allow it to withdraw troops in return for various security guarantees and a promise that the militants would hold peace talks with the Afghan government.
Abdullah lost to Ghani in 2014 in a divisive election that saw the US intervene to broker an awkward power-sharing deal between the two rivals.
