KABUL (PAN): The Council for Joint Cooperation of Afghan Presidential Candidates (CJCAPC) on Sunday warned of boycott of the August 20 presidential elections if its concerns about lack of transparency in the poll process were not addressed.
In its meeting here, the council blamed Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission, some candidates and Electoral Complaints Commission of violating the electoral laws.
Presidential aspirant Abdul Ghafoor Zori who chaired the meeting on the occasion said all members of the CJCAPC would discuss the issue of boycott of the elections in their next meeting, if their demands were not met.
However, the officials of the AIEC rejected their claims and demanded evidence in support of the charges.
The CJCAPC members in its meeting failed to declare the name of their consensus candidate for the presidency and left the topic to be decided in their next meeting.
Zori said the decision to declare a consensus candidate was delayed due to lack of transparency in the poll process. He said the election commission was not an independent body. He said they would boycott the elections if the electoral body did not remove mistakes from its inside.
Another presidential candidate and the spokesman for CJAPC Bashir Bezhan said they had raised several questions about lack of transparency in the elections to national and international communities, but the answers were still awaited.
"Our final decision will be boycott of the polls," he said. The 23-member CJAPC was formed soon after the election commission announced the final list of presidential hopefuls.
Electioneering was formally announced on June 16 and will end up 48 hours before the voting day. 38 presidential contenders are in the run for the presidency in the upcoming elections scheduled on August 20.
