A day after the Independent Election Commission (IEC) announced second partial results of presidential election based on almost 50% of vote count Dr. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai objected it. In a press conference on Monday, Ashraf Ghani said that announcement of partial result created confusion and that the IEC must stop releasing such result.

Contrary to what Ashraf Ghani says, the phase-wise announcements of election results have made many things clear to the nation. Now, it is much clear where each of the eight presidential contenders is standing. And most importantly, Mr. Ghani must have thought twice before raising such an objection as the IEC is done with announcing partial results. Based on its schedule, the IEC is expected to come up with preliminary results tomorrow, 24th April with which the fate of all candidates will become clear up to a great extent.

Ashraf Ghani has secured the most votes after Dr. Abdullah Abdullah based on the second partial result announced by the IEC on Sunday. If the later fails to secure more than 50% of the votes, the election will go into the second round. The run-off will be between Dr. Abdullah and Dr. Ashraf Ghani. However, based on the latest election results Dr. Abdullah Abdullah is leading by obtaining 44.4% of total votes followed by Dr. Ashraf GhaniAhmadzia and Dr. ZulmaiRasoul at 33.2% and 10.2% respectively.

Dr. Ashraf Ghani has played with statistics in much part of his professional career. He has taught at a US university and has been an official of World Bank. Since the fall of Taliban he has held various important positions in Hamid Karzai’s government. So it should not be difficult for him to estimate his win or loss. 

In the first partial result there was a minor difference between the results of Abdullah and Ghani. However, the new results indicate a huge difference of 11.2% between the results of the two. However, Ashraf Ghani has obtained 33.2% of almost 50% of total votes so far counted by IEC. This shows a great improvement when compared with number of votes he had received in 2009 presidential election. He has moved from 4th to 2nd position. For this development, Mr. Ghani must be thankful to General Dostum who seems to have brought him a major portion of votes from areas dominated by Uzbeks.

More announcements from IEC are expected and it would be wise to wait and see. But what is important is that each of the presidential candidates must mentally prepare themselves for accepting the election results for the good of the country.