KHOST CITY (Pajhwok): Protesters in southeastern Khost province on Wednesday closed the Independent Election Commission’s (IEC) office over an ongoing inspection of 91 polling stations in the province.
Recently the IEC office in Khost decided to inspect votes at 91 polling stations but some lawmakers alleged the commission’s decision would serve in the interest of some candidates.
Shakeel, one of the protesters, said they would keep the local IEC office closed until the election body reserved its decision.
“If there is a problem in voter lists or any other place, so it was IEC duty because they had hired employees and the process of addressing complaints is over. Now they have introduced another strategy which is if 10 percent votes are not polled according to a voter list in a ballot box, all the votes would be invalidated.”
Hazrat Zaman, another candidate, said the two electoral bodies were not independent in their decisions and everything was decided under deals.
Meanwhile, IEC Director Abdullah Ansari said the commission was inspecting and recounting votes from 91 polling stations due to alleged claims of rigging and fraud.
nh/ma
