Afghans went to the poll last month – but not many of them. According to preliminary figures, the turnout was as low as 20 percent, due to Taliban threats of violence.

The official result will be announced on November 7. But that didn’t stop the two main candidates – President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah – from claiming victory.

To discuss:

• Ambassador Omar Samad is the former Afghan Ambassador to France and Canada.
• Nadia Hashimi is a women’s rights activist.
• Kamran Bokhari is the founding director of the Center for Global Policy.
• Sean Callebs is a CGTN Correspondent.

For more:

Afghanistan: Previous presidential election turnouts:
2004: 84%
2009: 39%
2014: 39%
2019: 20.8% (IEC rough estimate)#Afghanistan

— Asia Elects (@AsiaElects) September 28, 2019

In Afghanistan's presidential election held last Saturday, the worry about low turnout has now turned into suspicion of artificially high turnout https://t.co/2lbOZMZmWS

— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 4, 2019