KABUL - Just a day after a historic election that saw millions of Afghans safety cast votes, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) has said the process of transferring ballots from districts to provincial centers is well underway and counting has already begun. With preliminary results expected to be announced in the coming days, officials urged candidates to be patient and respect the electoral process, but especially the results.

The vote counting process begins at polling centers in the districts, then once that is complete, ballots are sent to the IEC's central offices in each province's capital. Once collected there, they are counted and then transferred to the IEC's headquarters in Kabul via results sheets that will registered and verified.

According to IEC Secretariat chief Zia-ul-Haq Amarkhail, district ballots in 15 provinces have been counted and already sent to the central electoral offices of each province. On Monday, each central office is expected to begin tallying its province's votes.

Mr. Amarkhail said there were only a few provinces that had not yet completed district counts, on account of security issues.

"Vote counting has been conducted very well all over Afghanistan, except in distant and insecure provinces," he said. "Despite the insecurity, the materials are secure and safe under the watch of IEC employees and security forces." He did not say what provinces, specifically, were facing security issues that were delaying the counting process.

Once ballots are transferred to provincial capitals, the IEC will begin filling out result sheets. Mr. Amarkhail assured that the sheets, along with other necessary materials, had been successfully distributed to the Commission's regional offices.

"Result sheets, critical and non-critical materials along with everything else have been transferred to the regional IEC offices as per the election timeline," he said. "Soon, we will begin to transfer them to headquarters, where the counting information will be registered."

Confirming that the election timeline published by the IEC remains on course, the IEC has said preliminary results from the presidential elections will be announced on April 24, and the final results on May 15. In case none of the eight candidates receive a clear majority, the election will go into a second round, tentatively scheduled for May 28.

Meanwhile, the IEC has asked all the presidential candidates and their supporter to not speculate on the results of the election and to respect people's votes. Election monitoring groups have also expressed concern about candidates claiming victory before the results are established.

"Candidates should speak responsibly during the process, they should let people decide who is the winner and who is not," Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA) spokesman Muhammad Fahim Naeemi said.

It was only hours after the polls closed on Saturday that candidates such as Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani Ahamadzai began speculating about the election's outcome. Media outlets like Pajhwok also released reports with numbers of votes for each candidate. What these predications were based off remains unknown, but the IEC was quick to denounce their validity.

"The only institution that can confirm the results of the election is the Independent Election Commission (IEC)," said Naeem Ayoubzada, the head of the Transparent Election Foundation of Afghanistan (TEFA). "Based on the law, any other prediction is confusing and playing with people's minds."

Zalmai Rassoul, one of the leading presidential candidates, also spoke out against the premature predictions. "I did not have government assistance, and if I had, I would have announced that we won the elections by 90 percent as some candidates claimed only after 4 hours," Rassoul said on Saturday night. "They should be asked 'who assisted you'?"

Saturday's elections, which marked the beginning of Afghanistan's first democratic transition of presidential power in history, have been praised by leaders around the world. High voter turnout and the peaceful environment kept at the polls were highlights that, for many, were a surprise. With ballot counting just beginning, however, there remains a long road ahead before overall victory can be declared by anyone, let alone the candidates. (Tolonews)