On Sunday afternoon during a press conference, Zalmai Rassoul, the third leading candidate in the preliminary round, endorsed frontrunner Abdullah Abdullah.
During the conference, Dr. Rassoul said that he joined hands with Dr. Abdullah because of their related commitment to the people.
“We joined Abdullah to further strengthen national unity,” he said. “We have a good working background and can move forward together.”
Dr. Rassoul expressed his gratitude to Abdullah and his team for supporting his platforms.
“I am grateful to Abdullah for approving our platforms,” Dr. Rassoul said. “We are determined to fulfill our promises.”
At the end of his speech, Dr. Rassoul called on to the people of Afghanistan to vote for Abdullah.
“Vote for Abdullah for the sake of national unification,” he uttered.
He added that majority of his colleagues supported the union, while a few others decided otherwise because of “personal motives.”
A few minutes later, Dr. Abdullah took the stage to deliver a speech in accepting Dr. Rassoul’s alliance.
“Today we are a single team,” Dr. Abdullah declared. “We are committed to work honestly and sincerely in fulfilling the commitments we made to our people.”
Dr. Abdullah now has the support of Zalmai Rassoul, who came in third in the preliminary round with 11.5 percent of the votes equaling 759,540 votes and Gul Agha Sherzai who received 1.6 percent of the votes making up exactly 106,673 votes.
Dr. Abdullah reaffirmed that the coalition with Dr. Rassoul was brought together because of their similarities in their platforms.
“Our platforms were similar to Rassoul, which is what brought us together,” Dr. Abdullah announced. “We want equality among the Afghan people and the next government will be monitored by the people.”
Dr. Abdullah and Dr. Rassoul both touched base on ethnicity emphasizing that ethnic division must be prohibited for a unified and stable Afghanistan.
Dr. Rassoul’s running mate, Ahmad Zia Massoud and key supporter Qayum Karzai were not at the event.
Meanwhile, last week a group of Hezb-e-Islami figures, specifically Qazi Mohammad Amin and Wahidullah Sabawon—who had originally endorsed Dr. Rassoul in the first round—announced their support for Dr. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai in the second round.
Source/Fuente: http://www.tolonews.com/elections2014/rassoul-joins-abdullah
