Afghanistan postpones release of election results amid protests

KABUL (Xinhua) - Afghan election commission on Saturday announced to delay the release of the result of presidential runoff held on June 14 amid staging protests by those presumably supporters of the presidential candidate Abdullah.

"I am saying that announcing partial results will be delayed for one or few days," chairman of the election commission, Ahmad Yusuf Nuristani told a press conference here.

He announced the decision to postpone the release of the election result just days after suspending of relations by presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah with the election body.

Presidential candidate Abdullah who secured 45 percent of the votes out of some seven million votes casted in April 5 presidential elections against his rival Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai who garnered 31.6 percent, on Wednesday accused the election commission of involvement in the election process and suspended his engagement with the election.

Abdullah Abdullah on Thursday termed the performances of the election commissions as illegal, saying the commissions' decisions will be unacceptable.

However, chairman election commission Nuristani said that all the questions of Abdullah will be responded and all his concerns about alleged fraud in the election process will be allayed.

Nuristani also said 80 percent of the votes had been counted.

Partial results of the June 14 presidential runoff was due to come out Saturday, while the preliminary results of the runoff will be announced on July 2 and the final results on July 22, according to the election commission officials.

In the meantime, hundreds of Kabul residents took to streets on Saturday calling for transparency in the votes casted during presidential runoff held on June 14 in the conflict-ridden Afghanistan.

"Our votes must be respected and those committed fraud in the elections should be brought to justice and we defend our votes by our bloods," the protesters said in their slogans.

The protests were blast off in the wake of the objection made by Abdullah Abdullah on Wednesday over what he termed fraud in the election process and halted engagement with the election commissions.

Abdullah, who has claimed to be the winner of both rounds of the April 5 and June 14 presidential polls, on Thursday suspended his engagement with the election commission, saying any decisions and any performances made by the elections are illegal and unacceptable.