Afghanistan Times
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KABUL: The Free and Fair Election Forum of Afghanistan (FEFA), an electoral watchdog based in Kabul claims that the Independent Election Commission would not be able to hold presidential elections in September, referring to mismanagement within the electoral body.
Yousuf Rashid, head of FEFA, said Wednesday that mismanagement, lack of a coordinated viewpoint among the members of the electoral body and ill-willing to hold the election has led to delay in implementation of operational project.
“If the budget was not available, and the commission could not hire employees due to schedule, the election would not be held in September and it would be delayed once again,” he said.
But Habib Rahman Nag, head of the commission’s secretariat, said that the body was prepared to hold elections in September as already scheduled.
Earlier, the elections commission had finalized USD 150 million as the budget for the elections. Out the budget, USD 30 million was allocated for purchasing biometric identification devices.
Presidential vote was initially scheduled for April 20, but was postponed for July 20 due to what was said “bad weather” and finally it was slated for September 28 of this year.
Afghanistan held parliamentary votes on October 20, 2018. It lasted two days with widespread accusation of mismanagement and fraud. The result for the election was announced four months later, with a number of female parliamentary candidates still protesting the results.
