Two Afghan presidential candidates on Wednesday claimed that widespread electoral fraud has taken place on September 28 elections in Afghanistan.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of Hezb-e-Islami, who signed a peace accord with the government in 2016 and nominated himself for president in 2019 to lead the country, warned that the result of a fraudulent election will take the country into crisis.

“The issues is that fraud has happened and there are fraudulent votes. [The commission] must clarify where and how it happened,” Hekmatyar said while speaking at a press conference in Kabul.

In addition, Mr. Hekmatyar claimed that specific electoral tickets have distributed government positions and properties during campaign period to secure votes in their favor.

Abdul Latif Pedram, a former lawmaker from northern Badakhshan province who was unable to win a seat in the Afghan parliamentary elections that took place in October 2018, was also a candidate in 2019 presidential elections.

Speaking at a separate press conference in Kabul, Mr. Pedram claimed that the outcome of this election will be a government with a lack of enough legitimacy.

“Any government or state that comes out of this election will not have the required legitimacy and at the same time it will not have the required support,” Mr. Pedram said.

Both candidates called on electoral management bodies to identify and invalidate the fraudulent votes.

Meanwhile, Awrangzaib, a senior member of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) vowed that IEC will assess all complaints independently to build trust on the process.

These remarks come days after Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani electoral tickets claimed victory and Rahmatullah Nabil said the election has no winner in the first round.