KABUL (Pajhwok): The ‘Stability and Partnership’ electoral team on Sunday insisted it would not take part in the vote recount and audit process that would call into question the election’s legitimacy if not stopped.
On November 9, the electoral panel started the audit and recount of votes from 8,255 of the 26,580 polling stations to sift fraudulent ballots from valid ones.
The move has drawn opposition from several candidates including Dr. Abdullah Abdullah and GulbadinHekmatyar.
However, the IEC Saturday said the vote recount and audit process would resume across the country on Sunday .
Abdullah said, “Our expectation was that the IEC would not count non-biometric votes and declare imaginary vote boxes as invalid”.
Dr. Abdullah said the IEC had no reason to satisfy them, therefore, their observers decided not to participate in the recount.
Abdullah said commission officials’ statements last night were not in accordance with the law and appeared ordered from an election team because they had no reason to be satisfied.
“If the IEC continues the recount process today, the election process will be called into question and the commission will lose its impartiality because the recount process will take place in the absence of other election observers,” he said.
The head of the Stability and Convergence Team said they did not expect the IEC would act as spokesman for the state-building team.
Abdullah accused IEC of being run and led by President Ashraf Ghani and warned that the presidential election would run the risk of losing its full legitimacy. Abdullah said he would work on any legal, peaceful and legitimate option that could prevent fraud.
Meanwhile, Amrullah Saleh, President Ghani’s running mate, in response to Abdullah said IEC did not work as State Builder team spokesman and Abdullah had role in hiring IEC workers.
pk/ma