Afghanistan's presidential candidates agreed on the audit of votes casted in June 2014 election

The two presidential candidates agreed on 13 July 2014 for an audit of every vote cast in June 2014 presidential election. The deal was brokered by US Secretary of State John Kerry in an effort to end a bitter standoff that raised fears of violence and ethnic unrest.

The two presidential candidates agreed to the deal Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah after two days of negotiations held in Kabul.

As per the deal, after the audit of the votes, the winner will serve as President and will immediately form a government of national unity.

Further the deal reached was far wider than a UN proposal made on 10 July 2014. According to UN proposal, the audit of votes was to be done for over 8000 polling stations where suspicions of ballot-stuffing was raised which was about 44 percent of the total votes cast.

Background

The deadlock over the run-off vote to choose a successor to outgoing President Hamid Karzai plunged Afghanistan into political crisis and dented US hopes of a smooth transfer of power as Washington seeks to withdraw all its troops by late 2016.

Preliminary results released on 7 July 2014 showed that Ghani was in the lead, with some 56 percent of the vote, ahead of Abdullah on 44 percent. However, Abdullah declared himself the true winner citing massive fraud in counting of votes.

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