Preliminary counting of 14th June second ballot for the Afghan Presidential election show Ashraf Ghani ahead on the other candidate Abdullah Abdullah, former foreign minister.

The Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan has announced yesterday 7th July, 2014 in a conference press the preliminary results of the runoff ballot held on June 14.

Extensive documentation and detailed statistics for both the first ballot of the Presidential Election of last 5th April and preliminary results on the runoff election are available on the Commission website.

According to the first results counted by the Commission (IEC), Ghani an ethnic Pashtun, had secured 56 percent of the vote, while Abdullah, who is popular among the Tajik community, won 43 percent.

The final results however are still pending for an official investigation including recounting and checks for nearly 2,000 polling stations suspected of registering fraudulent ballots.

First reactions of Abdullah entourage given by Fazl Rahman Orya, one of his spokesmen were quite negative as the candidate rejects the IEC’s figures and not reliable any decision made by the commission. Abdullah has accused election officials of widespread vote-rigging in favor of Ghani, and he announced shortly after the June 14 runoff that he did not recognize the ballot-counting process as legitimate. Following these remarks, the EC Chairman Ahmad Yusuf Nuristani said both campaigns had agreed on four criteria proposed by the United Nations that would allow for a broader inspection encompassing 7,000 polling centers, or about 3 million votes

the United Nations are throughly following the counting process with the assistance of observers and the close reporting of representatives from the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).