KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s drawn-out presidential election may finally be coming to an end.

Nearly six months after Afghans cast ballots in a first-round vote, the country’s election commission on Saturday said it would announce final, audited results on Sunday from a two-man runoff held in June.

U.N. and Afghan election officials spent weeks auditing those results after allegations of vote fraud, a common occurrence over Afghanistan’s last two presidential elections.

But despite the recount and audit, the drawn-out race does not appear to be coming down to a precise vote tally. Rather, it is high-stakes negotiations that will settle the country’s power structure.

Boiled down to their simplest formula, the talks pit the northern power brokers backing former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah against the southern and eastern Pashtun supporters of Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, a former finance minister and World Bank official.

President Hamid Karzai excused himself from a memorial ceremony in honor of a deceased former president on Saturday to prepare for what could be the final talks for a national unity government.

“If you give me permission I want to leave and prepare for another meeting in which our jihadi leaders, elders and candidates will attend and we will have good news for the Afghan nation, God willing,” Karzai told the gathering.

The two candidates have been negotiating a deal that would divide responsibilities between the president and the newly created office of chief executive. Those talks have been dragging on for weeks.