KABUL (Pajhwok): The Stability and Partnership ticket on Sunday during a meeting accused the Independent Election Commission (IEC) on violation of law and left the event while the Commission says it would announce its finding on votes’ audit.
Presidential election was held on September 28. Earlier the IEC had given October 19 the date for announcement of preliminary result while November 7 for announcement of final result of the presidential election.
But due to some technical issues and problems during separation of clean and fraudulent votes, the IEC could not announce the result on its due date.
On October 27, the IEC said that primary result of the presidential election would be announced on November 14, but the commission again delayed it for an indefinite time.
The IEC has audited and recounted votes of a number of polling stations belonged to 27 out of total 34 provinces of the country. However, a number of presidential tickets including Stability and Partnership led by Dr. Abdullah Abdullah boycotted the process.
A meeting attended by 70 people including election commissioners, representatives of election tickets, election oversight institutes, civil society activists and media was organized today here for settling problems faced the election process.
Hawa Alam Nuristani, IEC chief, talking to the meeting, stressed on the independency of the commission and asked election tickets to help the commission in audit and recount process of votes from the remaining seven provinces.
She stressed that the votes that lack biometric data will be invalidated.
Asadullah Saadati, second vice-president candidate of Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, said that the IEC illegally counted over 102,000 votes casted out of time and over 137,000 controversial votes as valid.
He said there was no need for votes audit and recount process the IEC was now running because there was information available about votes data in biometric devices.
Saadati tried to talk more about election problems but his microphone was turned off. He continued that he knew their ‘legal demands’ were ignored and the IEC already decided about votes.
Later, representatives of Stability and Partnership team accused the IEC on law violation and left the meeting in protest.
Zabihullah Mujadadi, head of National Salvation Front and Ahmad Eshchi, head of Hizb-i-Janbish Nawin Afghanistan, in today’s meeting asked the IEC to announce the preliminary result of the election as soon as possible.
He said the election result should be announced as early as possible and any election team could lodge their complaints with the Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) if they had any.
Seddiqullah Mal, deputy IEC chief at the end of the meeting said that all the decisions of the commission were based on the electoral law and procedures without the influence of any side.
He said the IEC would announce its decision regarding recount and audit of votes in the reaming seven provinces of the country.
Meanwhile, Hawa Alam Nuristani, IEC chief pointing to Noor Rahman Akhlaqi’s remarks that none of the commission’s employees have so far introduced to judicial organs for their violations, said that the commission had introduced 12,650 of its workers committed violations to the IECC.
She said that the process was ongoing and any worker of the commission found guilty of violations would be referred to IECC.
Representatives of European Union, NATO, and embassies of US, Britain, Germany, Denmark and Italy were also present in today’s meeting.
Mds/nh