Afghan poll panel postpones announcing partial results

The Afghan election commission Saturday announced that it is delaying the release of the result of the presidential election runoff held June 14.

"I am saying that announcing partial results will be delayed for one or few days," Ahmad Yusuf Nuristani, chairman of the election commission, told a press conference here.

He announced the decision to postpone the result of the runoff polls just days after presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah suspended working relations with the election body, Xinhua reported.

Presidential candidate Abdullah secured 45 percent of the some seven million votes cast in the April 5 presidential elections against his rival Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai who garnered 31.6 percent.

Abdullah Thursday termed the performances of the election commission as illegal, saying the commission's decisions will be unacceptable.

However, Nuristani said that all the questions of Abdullah will be responded to and all his concerns about alleged fraud in the election process will be allayed.

Nuristani also said 80 percent of the votes had been counted so far.

Partial results of the June 14 presidential runoff were due to come out Saturday, while the preliminary results of the runoff will be announced July 2 and the final results July 22, according to election commission officials.