Around 16,500 complaints have been lodged following the announcement of preliminary results from September 28 presidential election in Afghanistan, officials said on Thursday.
Zuhra Bayan Shinwari, the head of Electoral Complaints Commission, told a press conference that the three-day process of receiving complaints over the results ended on Wednesday.
Of around 16,500 complaints, 2,300 were lodged in Kabul while the remaining 14,200 complaints were lodged in other provinces.
Abdullah Abdullah’s campaign lodged the highest number of complaints with around 8,000. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Ashraf Ghani followed with 4,400 and 3,000. Rahmatullah Nabil lodged 15 complaints.
Bayan said that provincial offices of ECC have 15 days to finalize their investigation and release the results.
Appeal cases would be addressed by ECC headquarters in Kabul.
“ECC assures all stakeholders in electoral process that members of the commission would address the complaints with full honesty and impartially and according to electoral laws and procedures,” Bayan said.
Based on preliminary poll results, incumbent President Ghani won a slim majority (50.64 percent) of votes. He was followed by Abdullah (39.52 percent).
