The Independent Election Commission (IEC) said on Tuesday that they will not announce the final election results until all complaints presented by presidential candidates are addressed.
“There is still a lot of work that needs to be done in gathering the final results of the audit process," IEC member Sarir Ahmad Barmak said. “Even if we accelerate finalizing the checklists, the final results will be announced in the coming week, at the soonest."
According to Barmak, the IEC has not yet decided on a date to announce the final results, as political negotiations between presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai have reached no conclusive ends.
This is while earlier this week, on Monday the IEC Chief Ahmad Yousef Nuristani had told media that the IEC's decisions about the announcement of election results had nothing to do with the candidates' political negotiations, asserting that the results will be announced regardless of the agreements.
On the same day, presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah announced that the political negotiations with his rival team had entered yet another deadlock, warning that he will not accept any results that are on the basis of fraud.
Election monitoring bodies such as the Transparent Election Foundation of Afghanistan (TEFA) have asked the IEC to announce the results after political talks are over.
“Our demand from the election commission is to let the candidates reach a political agreement before announcing the election results,” TEFA Chief Executive Mohammad Yousaf Rashid said.
Analysts fear that the announcement of the final results before agreements between the candidates are finalized could cause political turmoil, adding to the existing instability and insecurity.