Afghanistan: Parliamentary Election Results Announced

On Wednesday, Afghanistan’s Independent Electoral Commission released the results from the September parliamentary elections for 34 of 35 voting districts. A loose coalition led by former presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah won over 90 of the 249 seats in the lower house of the Afghan parliament and will form a quasi-opposition to President Hamid Karzai’s parliamentary allies. Christian Science Monitor reports that the winners were disproportionally members of the Hazara ethnic community, largely because continued violence in Pashtun regions kept voters at home. The Electoral Commission also announced that three more preliminary winners were disqualified for fraud, bringing the total number of disqualified candidate to 24.