The institutions overseeing the election process, reacting to the new move by the Independent Election Commission (IEC) over recounting and auditing votes from some polling stations in Kabul, said the commission tried to make fake result sheets for the votes of these polling stations.
According to the institutions, the election commission audits from 300 to 500 polling stations, and ballot boxes from these stations, do not have result sheets and they have said some circles inside the commission want to make fake result sheets for these boxes.
“The audit and recounting of the votes of these polling stations is being done to make documents for these stations and then deliver them,” Mohammad Omid Noorzai, a member of Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan said.
The election watchdogs’ reactions come after on Saturday the commission said they want to recount and audit half of Kabul votes to make the process more transparent.
While over two and half months have been passed since the October 20 and 21 parliamentary elections, the election commission still is busy auditing votes from hundreds of polling stations in Kabul province.
“The boxes being recounted and audited now are separate from those boxes that have been recounted and audited. These are boxes where result sheets have problems, or they do not have the sheets,” Sayed Hafizullah Hashemi, a commissioner of the election commission said.
“The commission wants to audit these 300 stations, there is no intention of making documents for them,” Zabihullah Sadat, a deputy spokesman for the election commission said.
“The issue of Kabul votes in the passing of each day, gets complicated and centers on fraud. I am afraid that at the end of the day, we reached a decision by the electoral complaint commission which was an invalidation of Kabul votes,” Mohammad Yusuf Rasheed, CEO of Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan said.
According to election watchdogs, Afghanistan election supporters see the election commission’s leadership team as unable to manage the elections and agrees they should be fired.
“We should see the shared view from the international community, civil society and the Afghan government on their (commissioners) dismissal. But the only shared view which does not exist is punishing them (commissioners),” Khalil Raufi, head of Afghanistan Youths Social and Educational Organization said.
Although July 20 this year has been specified as the presidential elections' date, the institutions overseeing the election process, political parties and presidential candidates insist on reforms in the election commission ahead of the elections.