Election campaign teams on Thursday strongly criticized the provincial offices of the Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) for issuing inconsistent decisions on complaints that are similar in nature.

The IECC has confirmed that controversial decisions were made by its provincial offices over the complaints.

According to the IECC, more than 1,600 appeals were filed against the decisions made by IECC provincial offices.

As the IEC prepares to recount 5,378 polling stations, the IECC argues that it will not be able to undertake the recount process for stations all at once due to the huge number of complaints filed against its provincial offices.

“When it comes to the votes that were cast before or after the time (legal voting hours), the decisions are not matching: the decisions that were made in Kabul are not matching the decisions that were made in Zabul. Similar decisions were made in the rest of the areas, for instance, in Helmand, they have referred the decision to the center to decide, while in Nangarhar a recount was proposed.  If there are four types of decisions, only one of the decisions can be legal,” said Noor Rahman Akhlaqi, a member of Abdullah’s campaign.
 
“The big issues that our appeals are based on is whether complaints are rejected, or if there is a decision to recount the votes,” said Mohammad Ajmal Hoodman, a member of President Ghani's State Builder election campaign team.

The IECC added that the Stability and Convergence campaign--led by Abdullah Abdullah--lodged more than 1,000 appeals against the IECC's decisions about complaints, while the State Builder campaign--led by Ashraf Ghani--has lodged more than 400 appeals to the IECC's decisions over complaints.

The Peace and Islamic Justice Campaign--led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar--has also lodged dozens of appeals disputing the decisions made by the IECC’s provincial offices.

The IECC has rejected nearly 10,000 out of 16,500 complaints because of a lack of evidence in the provinces.

The appeal registration process will continue up until Saturday.

“There is a huge amount of complaints; the IECC is completely ready to address all the complaints during the second phase of the assessment of the complaints in its central office,” said Mohammad Reza Fayaz, deputy spokesman for the IECC.

Election observers meanwhile say that the IECC faces a big responsibility when it comes to making a final decision about the 300,000 disputed votes--those votes considered "fraudulent by Abdullah's campaign and other others-- in the next two weeks.

The Independent Election Commission (IEC) will announce the presidential election results based on the IECC decisions.