Afghanistan Times
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KABUL: The Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Friday announced that the perpetrators of fraud in the September 28th’s presidential election had been identified.
The Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) jointly with IEC organized a consultative meeting for resolving the ongoing electoral differences in the presence of civil society and electoral tickets’ representatives.
Aurangzeb, an official of IEC, said at least 13,000 election workers had been referred to IECC on the charges of committing fraud and electoral violations. “The perpetrators of electoral rigging have been identified,” he added.
He further added that the first and foremost reason for electoral fraud was candidates who had threatened and encouraged election workers to work for or against someone in the polls.
Zohra Bayan Shinwari, head of IECC, while expressing here concern regarding the postponement in announcing the preliminary results, urged IEC to end the stalemate in election as soon as possible, adding the election candidates should also allow the IEC for its work.
IEC Head Hawa Alam Nuristani on her part in the session said that 700,000 votes had been so far invalidated.
She demanded permission for the recount and audit of votes in seven provinces and warned the commission’s independence would be undermined if they were not allowed to continue their work.
Asadullah Saadati, nominee for second vice president slot in Stability and Partnership team, said in line with their demand, 102,000 votes casted before the official time should be invalidated and another 137,000 non-biometric votes should be recounted. He insisted their team won’t accept fraudulent results.
Umer Daudzai, the State Builder election team’s head of campaign, asked the IEC to announce the election result as soon as possible. “IEC is ready to announce the results but there are some political hurdles in this regard.”
The joint consultative meeting also saw a verbal clash between the IEC head and a number of representatives of presidential contenders.
This comes as last week, there was a similar session aimed at finding a solution to the current electoral crisis but that also ended with no positive results.
