CE Abdullah Criticizes IEC’s Shortcomings in Election

The Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah has criticized the Independent Election Commission (IEC)’s shortcomings in election and accepted that some of the people were deprived of their voting rights.

“There is no justification for the repetition of failures, and clear answers should be given to the people,” Abdullah said.

The chairman of IEC, Abdul Badi Sayad accepts the shortcomings but vows to investigate the mishandling of the weekend’s problem-plagued legislative ballot.

“We have assigned a commission to investigate the mismanagement and violations, including the late opening of the centers and use of biometric devices,” Sayyad told reporters on Monday.

“Anyone who has neglected or is involved in shortcomings will be punished.”

Balloting started on Saturday as the IEC initially planned to hold the polls in one day, but the IEC officials extended the voting to Sunday as scores of polling centers were not open or run on Saturday after long delays due to militants’ attacks, irregularities, and low attendance of election workers.

The elections covered 32 out of the country’s 34 provinces. Voting in Kandahar and Ghazni provinces has been postponed due to security reasons.

Meanwhile, a number of political parties’ representatives also criticized the election process, saying the voting centers in some areas have been deliberately closed to people.

“The votes of those centers that did not use the biometric system should be announced invalid. We will wait up to the next two days for a complete report,” Noorul Rahman Akhlaqi, a member of Jamiat Islami Leadership Council said.

Muhammad Nateqi, the deputy of Afghanistan Wahdat-e Mili party added, “They planned to organize fraud and irregularities with indicating that the biometric system is not working.”

More than 2,500 candidates are contesting for the Wolesi Jirga or the 249-seat lower house of the parliament.

Most of the candidates stand independently as the country did not have many regular and standard political parties.

Nearly nine million voters, out of 12 million eligible Afghans, were registered to take part in the process and elect their lawmakers for a five-year term.

However, only over four million Afghans, with 33 percent of them women, cast their ballots during the two-day elections due to Taliban intimidation and security threats.