First election results released

With the announcement of provisional results from two provinces in Afghanistan, the physical process of counting ballots across the war-ravaged country has been completed, Peter Erben, head of the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB), said on Thursday in the Afghan capital Kabul. "We are pleased to announce the provisional results from two provinces today, Nimroz and Farah,” Erben said. Under the allocation of seats, two candidates will be elected for the Wolesi Jirga (lower house of parliament) in Nimroz province and five in southwestern Farah. In both southwestern provinces, one of the Wolesi Jirga seats is reserved for the leading female candidate who topped the polls, according to electoral officials. Other provisional results were expected in the coming days, with investigations continuing into ballot boxes that had been put in quarantine because of alleged fraud, including ballot stuffing, Erben noted. "We are now focusing all our efforts on completing the auditing process to ensure the accuracy of our count operation before results are published," Bissmillah Bissmil, chairman of the JEMB, said. However, the electoral authorities conceded that they were excluding nearly 300 polling stations from the vote count due to fraud. According to Erben, fraud had been detected at 299 polling stations so far — about 1 percent of the total nationwide — but no clear evidence had been found to implicate any candidates. Of the country's 12.5 million registered voters, some 6.8 million Afghans took part in the polls to elect a national legislature and 34 provincial councils for a five-year term. Almost 5,800 candidates contested the poll, including over 2,700 for the 249-seat Wolesi Jirga and more than 3,000 for 420 seats in the provincial councils. Following the announcement of provisional results for the Wolesi Jirga and provincial councils, a five-day period will be provided for the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) to process complaints about the counting and voting process. Final certified results for the polls are expected to be announced by the JEMB in the last week of October.