President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani on Friday inaugurated the 17th legislative term of the Lower House of the Afghan Parliament (Wolesi Jirga).
The new term of the parliament was inaugurated hours after the final results of Maidan Wardak, Kunduz, Baghlan, and Nomads constituency were announced.
However, the final election results of Kabul and Paktia provinces have not been announced by Independent Election Commission so far.
Speaking during the inauguration ceremony of the newly-elected parliament, President Ghani said the 17th legislative term of the parliament was supposed to be inaugurated six months ago, blaming the former election commissioners for their incompetence which he believes was the main reason behind the delay in the inauguration of the new term of parliament.
President Ghani also ruled out any interference in election commission’s affairs in the past six months and the government had no role in the delays.
He demanded the immediate announcement of final results of Kabul emphasizing that the election commission should respect the patience of the people and immediately the announce the results of Kabul.
The parliamentary elections were conducted late in the month of October last year and was marred by massive technical troubles mainly due to the circumstance surrounding the utilization of biometrics system and late opening of the polling stations which resulted into the extension of voting process by a day in several sites in capital Kabul.
