The draft for the amendment of the election law, an issue which has always been insisted by election observer organizations, presidential candidates and political parties, will be finalized within the next two days, Presidential Palace said in a statement on Friday. 

According to the statement, a meeting was held at the Presidential Palace on Friday which was attended by President Ashraf Ghani, Second Vice President Sarwar Danish, a number of presidential candidates, politicians and representatives of political parties where they discussed issues around amending the election law. 

The participants shared views on removing some articles from the law and adding some new articles. 

President Ghani said that amendment of the election law is a need and that it is demanded by almost all the stakeholders. 

“The draft for amendment has been prepared. After taking the opinions of all the concerned people, the law will be amended based on the draft,” said Ghani. 

Second Vice President Sarwar Danish said the draft is not an outline proposed by government. He said that at least 20 meetings have been held and the draft has been prepared after taking suggestions and consultations from concerned stakeholders.

Participants of the meeting agreed that a technical committee with members from representatives of presidential candidates, pollical parties and the concerned civil society organizations will work for two days on the draft and finalize it, the statement said. 

On February 2, the office of the Second Vice President said government leaders are working on amending the law and that President Ghani will issue a legislative decree in the near future to approve the outline for amending the law. 

Government has said that the amending will include changes in the leadership of the election commission as well as procedures of the electoral bodies. 

“Reforms include all these sections. Changes will happen in employees of the commissions, structure of the commissions and the elections rules and procedures,” said Mohammad Hedayat, an advisor to Second Vice President. 

The election commission has said that the commissioners of the commissions have been appointed based on the law and that the law should be respected in removing them as well. 

The electoral complaint commission also has said that the amending the elections law in the current situation is not logical.