WASHINGTON, September 17 (RIA Novosti) - The United States is cautious with the presidential election results in Afghanistan and waits for the certified ones, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of State said.
With all the ballots counted, the Afghan Central Election Commission said on Wednesday that incumbent President Hamid Karzai garnered 54.62% of the vote in the August 20 elections.
"I want to reemphasize that these [the results] are just preliminary, they're not final, and we're still waiting for the certified results. These certified results will only come after the Independent Electoral Commission and the Electoral Complaints Commission have carried out their investigations thoroughly and done all the required audits and recounts," Ian Kelly told a daily press briefing in Washington.
Afghanistan's Chief electoral officer Daud Najafi said the winner of the presidential race will be announced only after the commission investigating vote irregularities has completed its work. A large number of complaints have been filed with the commission, and more than 200,000 ballots have already been rejected.
"You know that they've quarantined over 600 polling stations. And so just to say it again, we welcome this next step in the process, but caution patience to everybody to await the final certified results," Kelly added.
Najafi said 5,662,758 valid ballots were cast, with Karzai receiving 3,093,256 votes against 1,571,581 (27.75%) for his nearest rival, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah. Ramazan Bashardost came third with 520,627 votes (9.1%).
Turnout was 38.7% of the 15,295,016 eligible voters.
