KABUL - Presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah's running mate Mohammad Mohaqiq spoke with TOLOnews following the release of preliminary results from the runoff election Monday night. He said his team would not accept the results, which gave their opponent Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai a sizable lead, unless their demands are honored and fraudulent votes are pulled from the count.

The Independent Election Commission (IEC) announced on Monday the first installment of publicly released results from the June 14 runoff. The preliminary figures put Ashraf Ghani ahead by over one million votes, garnering about 56.4 percent of votes, while Abdullah trailed with 43.5 percent.

Mohaqiq warned that if their team denounces the results, so to will people in various provinces, and then the government and the election commission will be responsible for the consequences.

"We want to say to the people of Afghanistan that if our conditions aren't accepted and the assigned commission doesn't reach an outcome and our condition that invalid votes be distinguished from genuine votes is not accepted, we will not accept the results and consequences will follow and responsibility will be on the government, the rigging commission and rigging team," Mohaqiq said.

Abdullah's team has entered into talks with Ashraf Ghani's camp about de-escalating the tensions that have risen around this year's process since Abdullah accused top election officials and the Presidential Palace of engineering fraud. Although Abdullah remains officially estranged from the election commission's process, and asked for the preliminary results to be withheld until fraud complaints were resolved, election officials have pushed on for the most part according to schedule. The preliminary results were announced only four days later than originally scheduled.

The Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) is likely to be the last hope for the Abdullah team if they want to see fraud investigations impact the current results spread between them and their rivals. The ECC will recommend to the IEC how many votes should be invalidated before the final results are announced.

However, Mohaqiq expressed concern about the ECC under the leadership of Abdul Sattar Saadat, who was appointed by President Hamid Karzai. "The designation of Sattar Saadat as head of Electoral Complaints Commission was a big mistake, Karzai must not designate the elements that break national unity, we are against his work at the concerned institution," Mohaqiq told TOLOnews.

In response, ECC Chief Saadat has maintained that he was appointed to his post by the members of the commission on the basis of the law and not on the demands of any particular individuals.

Meanwhile, the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA) also showed signs of concern with the announcement of preliminary results. "The election process must return to a normal routine before the preliminary results are announced and both candidates must be involved in the process," FEFA spokesman Fahim Naeemi said. "Efforts should be made to discard fake votes from genuine votes, preliminary results must not lead to fighting, because it would have devastating impact on Afghanistan." (Tolonews)