KABUL, Afghanistan: The final results of the disputed presidential election in Afghanistan are expected to be released next week.
In a statement, an official of the Afghan Election Commission said that a winner would be announced whether or not the two rival candidates forge a promised power-sharing deal.
There are apprehensions that declaring a victor before a negotiated settlement could mark a new phase of the crisis as most of foreign troops prepare to withdraw by the end of the year.
The former finance minister Ashraf Ghani was declared the winner in preliminary results from the June 14 run-off ballot with 56.44 percent of the votes while the former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah came second with 43.56 percent.
However, Abdullah rejected the initial results as unacceptable and fraudulent, alleging that he was the victim of industrial-scale ballot box stuffing, with many more votes than the voters registered in some areas.
