Five months after Afghan citizens voted to elect their president, incumbent Ashraf Ghani has been declared the victor. According to the Afghan Independent Election Commission (IEC), Ghani obtained 50.6% of the vote. His closest competitor, Abdullah Abdullah, who currently serves as the Chief Executive of Afghanistan, took 39.52%. These results come as the result of a recount supervised by the IEC, which was ordered due to technical issues with the original count and protests from the candidates alleging widespread fraud and corruption. After the September election, nearly one million of the 2.7 million votes cast were thrown out due to irregularities. Abdullah continues to reject the results and has pledged to form a parallel government.
Declaring victory, Ghani has called for Afghan unity and has reiterated his interest in peace talks with the Taliban. US-Taliban peace talks are ongoing, and the US is expected to withdraw a number of its troops from Afghanistan in exchange for an agreement that the country will not be used as a safe harbor for terrorist attacks. Thus far, though, the Taliban has refused to meet directly with the NATO-backed Ghani government. The Taliban also rejects the results of the election, calling it a “fraud.” This raises the risk of further conflict and instability in Afghanistan moving forward, particularly in the event of decreased US involvement in the country.
