Afghan Presidential Election Tallying Starts
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - The counting of Afghan presidential election ballots started on Monday while the partial results is expected to come out the following day, an election official said.
"The polling ended 5:00 pm local time on Saturday. The initial counting process took place following the balloting on the polling centers. Today, election materials arrived from the 30 provinces out of 34 to the Independent Election Commission (IEC) headquarters. The tallying of the ballot papers started in National Tally Center, it is continuing all Monday," the IEC spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor told reporters.
The official said the ballot boxes from four remaining provinces will be shifted to Kabul by early Tuesday, Xinhua reported.
"The partial results is expected to be released early Tuesday," he said.
On Saturday, more than 7 million Afghans, out of 12 million eligible voters, cast their votes to elect a successor for the outgoing President Hamid Karzai for the next five years in the first transfer of power through polling in the country's history.
Presidential election complaint period is from April 7 to April 27. Under the Afghan law, official results cannot be announced until serious complaints are adjudicated.
The preliminary results will come out on April 24 and the final result will be announced in mid-May.
The number of presidential candidates has dropped to eight after the withdrawal of three contenders from the race.
The leading presidential candidates are former Foreign Ministers Abdullah Abdullah and Zulmai Rassoul as well as former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai.
Noor also confirmed two election workers were killed in two attacks in eastern Paktiya and northern Kunduz province on Saturday and Sunday.
