*Kabul: *
Voter participation in last weekend’s Afghan presidential election will bemuch less than a third, the country’s Independent Election Commission saidTuesday, marking a record-low turnout.
Afghans voted Saturday in the first round of a presidential race that willdecide whether President Ashraf Ghani will win a second five-year term,fending off a challenge from his top rival, Afghanistan’s Chief ExecutiveAbdullah Abdullah.
With data collated from nearly all polling centres, around 2.59 million ofAfghanistan’s 9.6 million voters turned out to cast a ballot, according toIEC commissioner Maulana Abdullah.
“This is not a final figure, it is going to change as we are stillreceiving more data,” Abdullah said.
The turnout — about 27 percent — represents a slight increase on initialfigures, but still a historical low.
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It was unclear how many of the approximately 4,500 polling stations thatreceived voters still had to transmit data, but the number appeared small.
The turnout is the lowest yet in Afghanistan’s presidential elections, asvoters stayed away due to the threat of attacks, a muted election campaignand concerns over fraud.Advertisement
Election officials have said the result would be the cleanest yet, withequipment such as biometric fingerprint readers and better training forpoll workers ensuring the vote was fair.
On Monday, Abdullah claimed to have won the election, but observersdismissed his boast as premature. -APP/AFP
