Afghanistan Times
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Independent Electoral Complaints Commission is not ruling out the possibility of barring more hopefuls from the October polls. A spokesman for the complaints panel has spoken of a flood of discrepancies and complaints lodged against candidates including a few of them whose cases had previously been adjudicated.
The commission has decided to reassess these cases that would likely lead them to delisting more candidates. This comes when the government’s opposition political parties are intending to bring more pressures on the government and the electoral commissions with their fresh suggestions that they believe are offered for more transparency and close any ways to fraud.
New suggestions, challenges and decisions appear while the government and electoral commissions have less than two weeks to hold the parliamentary and district council elections.
Security that is the most important part of election still looks delicate, and this time, the residence of head of the complaints commission comes under attack.
Using of the biometric system is another important thing that seems impossible for the commission especially in the remote and insecure areas.
The government and election commission should have considered all these months before the election date. They needed to hold comprehensive dialogues with the political parties, civil society figures, tribal elders and other influential people to collect their viewpoints on how to confront and solve the electoral problems.
But the government wasted time on the ID card distribution, stickers and similar other things that were not necessary. If the government had used the biometric system at the beginning of the voter registration process, it would not be facing such problems in this short time.
Although the government and election commission are desperately trying to convince people and political parties that everything will be good and a timely election with all standards will be held in a secure atmosphere, the reality is something else.
In fact, the people do not accept that these problems will be solved this soon.
Considering dozens of these problems, will Afghans have a timely election?
