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KABUL: A number of lawyers and law experts believe that the lower turnout in Saturday’s presidential election will not bring the contest’s credibility under question.
Initially figures of the independent election commission, explain that 1,051,998 people out of more than 9,000,000 of those registered, cast their votes. This indicates an eye-catching decrease of people’s participation in a national process compared to the similar events in the past years.
“Based on the constitution, the people’s poor participation puts no impact on the election’s legal and lawful credibility,” said Wahid Farzayee, a member of the lawyers’ association.
Gol Rahman Qazi, former head of the observer commission of the constitution’s implementation, also says that the used votes is important, not turnout. “This is the general rule that when we vote, maximum of the votes is counted,” he said.
About 16 million of approximately 32 million Afghans are qualified of voting. The election commission says that the results of election would be acceptable even with the lower turnout, arguing that this election was free of ghost votes.
Electoral watchdogs call people’s distrust to the election, problems in operative sections and weak campaign by the candidates as the reasons that people took less interest in the fourth presidential election.
The presidential election was held amid a volatile security situation, despite tight security measures taken on the election day that nullified almost every possible attacks on the voting centers.
Despite a full security, more than 440 voting centers remained close of the day of election due to threats and people in these areas were deprived from voting.
