Abdullah Withdraws from Afghan Vote Audit | WPN World People News

Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah has pulled out of the U.N.-supervised audit of June's disputed runoff election.

The move, reported by Abdullah's spokesman and a U.N. official on Wednesday, further complicates Afghanistan's tense political transition.

Abdullah's team has complained auditors have not been willing to throw out allegedly fraudulent votes, calling the process a "joke."

Auditors are in their final stages of examining the eight million votes cast during the June 14 run-off between Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani. Though preliminary votes suggested Ghani finished well ahead of Abdullah, both claimed to have won the election.

On Monday, the Afghan Election Commission announced that results from at least 72 of the country's nearly 4,000 ballot boxes have been invalidated.

The audit is part of a deal mediated by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and supervised by the United Nations. Washington had hoped the process would be complete, and a new president inaugurated, by the end of this month.

An Abdullah spokesman told the French news agency Wednesday that talks are ongoing with the U.N., but he said if an agreement cannot be reached, "that is the end of it."

Source: Voice of America