ZARANJ (Pajhwok): Like other provinces, losing provincial council candidates on Wednesday staged a rally in southwestern Nimroz province, accusing the Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) of counting invalidated votes as valid at seven polling stations.
The candidates and hundreds of their supporters attended the protest demonstration and gathered in front of the provincial Independent Election Commission (IEC) office. They asked the IEC officials to review their decision on the final result.
A protesting candidate Omaid Baloch said no changes had been brought to the list of winners in the final list as showed in the preliminary results.
He said the IECC had previously invalidated about 4,000 votes from seven polling stations but the ballots were later entered the system.
Some failing candidates would have found their way to the provincial council if the invalidated votes had not been counted as valid, Baloch said.
He claimed a specific candidate had been polled 700 votes in an area where no one had been issued voter cards.
He accused the IECC officials of accepting $15,000 to $30,000 in bribes from candidates to announce them as winners.
Rahmatullah, a supporter of a provincial council candidate Mohiuddin Nimorozi, said they would continue their protest until the invalidated votes were thrown out from the database system.
An official at the regional IECC office said they had no authority to change results and their responsibility was to share complaints with the main office in Kabul.
mds/ma
