Officials from the Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Sunday said they have issued over 200,000 accreditation cards to national and international observers and organizations, including the Afghan election watchdog organizations.
IEC spokesman Sayed Hafizullah Hashemi said 19 people who have received the cards are international observers who will monitor and oversee October 20 parliamentary elections.
Hashemi said a large number of these observers are volunteers who will work at polling stations to prevent fraud and electoral violations.
“234,500 people have received monitoring cards so far of whom 19 are international observers,” said Hashemi.
Meanwhile officials from three Afghan election watchdogs - Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA), Transparent Election Foundation of Afghanistan (TEFA) and Election Watch Afghanistan (EWA) – said nearly 10,000 observers from these organizations will monitor the upcoming elections.
Yusuf Rasheed, executive director of FEFA said they have appointed over 1,100 observers in 33 provinces to monitor the October 20 elections.
“They (observers) have received training, have been trained on serious issues relating to documents, reports and other issues and will act as professional observers,” said Rasheed.
Naeem Ayubzada, executive director of TEFA, also said in cooperation with 47 local partner organizations they have appointed 7,500 observers across the country to monitor elections.
“Our observers will receive cooperation from our local partner organizations in a provincial level, but they in general will be managed by TEFA,” said Ayubzada.
EWA officials also said they have selected over 1,500 observers in less than 15 provinces who will monitor elections in those areas.
“Our training programs have finished in Kabul and will start in 12 other provinces tomorrow,” EWA member Habibullah Shinwari said.
The institutions overseeing the election process said their observers will work in different parts of the country on election day.
In the past elections however, reports said there were ghost observers at the polling stations who did not actually exist.