The incumbent President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, has been declared the winner of the country’s presidential election nearly five months after the presidential elections took place. The Independent Election Commission (IEC) announced on Tuesday that Ghani garnered 50.64 per cent of the votes cast on September 28 of last year, beating Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, who secured 39.52 per cent of the votes.
The win puts Mr Ghani in position for another five-year term as president.
Outlook
While Afghanistan has over 9.6 million registered voters, only 2.7 million voted and only 1.8 million of those votes were counted – a very conservative number given Afghanistan’s estimated population of 35 million. This implies less than 1% of the population decided who has become president.
Issues
Afghanistan currently sits on the brink of a political crisis because Mr Ghani’s contender, Abdullah Abdullah, has also declared himself the winner of the election and has announced that he will form a government of his own.
Hours after Mr Ghani gave his victory speech, Mr Abdullah also appeared in a televised address surrounded by his own supporters where he said: “I asked those who believe in democracy, in a healthy future for this country, in citizens’ rights to stand up to fraud and to not accept this fraudulent result. We are the winners based on clean votes, and we declare our victory. We will form an inclusive government.”
The people of Afghanistan are currently watching history repeat itself as a similar turn of events occurred after the presidential elections in 2014. It remains to see if the same power-sharing deal that brokered peace then, will be used now.
Additionally, before the elections took place, the Taliban threatened to disrupt peaceful electoral processes, those threats are still very real in the country, despite the fact that the elections have already been held.
Ghani has had an eventful academic and political career. He was the head of Kabul University before becoming the Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004 where he led Afghanistan’s attempted economic recovery after the collapse of the Taliban Government.
In 2010, he led the lengthy process to transfer security of the country from the US-led coalition forces to the Afghanistan National Defense and Security Forces – it took effect in 2014.
