KABUL (Pajhwok): The vote recount and audit process has been completed in 27 provinces, while decision regarding the remaining seven provinces would be taken soon, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) said on Thursday.
IEC Head Hawa Alam Nuristani told reporters here the vote recount and audit process has been completed in 27 provinces, but in seven provinces, the process could not kicked off due protest by the supporters of some election teams.
She said the IEC was ready to talk to protesting teams and asked them to respect the law and allow the IEC teams to start the recount and audit process.
Nuristani warned the IEC would take decision in the light of law and regulations, if the protesting election teams continued their resistance and did not allow the process to begin.
Earlier, on November 9, the IEC announced the audit and recount process of total 8,255 polling stations in the country, but in some provinces the process was faced with strong opposition from some candidates which forced that IEC to halt the audit and recount process and resumed the process two days after it addressed the reservations of some candidates.
The votes audit and recount process forced that IEC to delay its announcement of preliminary elections result on November 14.
IEC Commissioner Maulana Abdullah said no one has the right to announce the election result if the recount process is left incomplete even in one province.
He termed dispatching 250 additional forms to Kandahar province and 25 to Kapesa province by the IEC secretariat and as illegal and said the move should be investigated.
In line with the IEC presidential election schedule, the preliminary result should was to be announced on October 19 while the final result was set to be announced on November 7, but the process suffered delay due to late transfer of biometric data to the central servers.
IEC had said to announce the preliminary result on November 14, but failed to meet that date as well and the announcement of September 28 presidential polls remained unknown since then.
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