In an exclusive interview with TOLOnews on Saturday night, CEO Abdullah Abdullah thanked the nation for having voted Saturday, especially amid such high security threats.

Speaking to TOLOnews’ Lotfullah Najafizada, he said the message behind the elections had been for the people to say no to terrorism – and that “this message went out in Afghanistan today (Saturday).”

He also said government knew the people would do the right thing by voting but acknowledged that there had been problems with the process. He also however stated these problems could have been avoided.

However he reassured the public that the challenges had in no way been intentional. Going forward, government, political parties and the election commissions need to work together to prevent the same mistakes from happening again in future, he said.

On the issue of the biometric system, he said the technical issues the IEC faced came about due to the limited amount of time the commission had had in terms of rolling out the process

He said the people who were not able to vote on Saturday would have the chance to do so on Sunday.

On the issue of presidential elections he said any delay in holding them would be unacceptable and that he hoped no political leaders interfered in the process.

Moving on to the matter of peace, he said countries that support the insurgency could easily help end the war in Afghanistan if they really wanted to.

He also said that during the US Special Representative for Afghanistan’s Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad’s first trip to Kabul earlier this month he had held discussions with the National Unity Government leadership but had not informed them of any plans to meet with the Taliban during his visit to Qatar in the same week.

He said only when Khalilzad returned to Kabul after visiting four other countries in the region did he tell Kabul about his talks with the Taliban.