The Independent Election Commission (IEC) has failed to reach a consensus on who to appoint to lead the IEC secretariat, former IEC chief Fazel Ahmad Manavi said on Sunday.
This comes two weeks after the IEC reportedly submitted the names of three candidates for the position to the National Unity Government (NUG). However, all three were reportedly rejected by President Ashraf Ghani and CEO Abdullah Abdullah.
Meanwhile, election observers and monitoring groups have accused IEC officials of dealing with the appointment from a political perspective.
Afghan Civil Society Election Network (ACSEN) has meanwhile accused the IEC of exploiting the election process for their own political purposes, warning that the weak performance and weak management by the IEC would plunge the next elections in a crisis.
ACSEN believes that weak leadership within the IEC will also raise questions over the credibility of the next elections in the country.
“On the one hand, the government itself appointed the election commission commissioners, on the other, government does not accept the decision of the commission members; if government did not deal with the issue politically, then why does it not accept their decision? This indicates that they (commission members) will not be able to protect the votes of people and this is quite concerning to us,” said ACSEN chief executive Jandad Spinghar.
Justifying government actions over the rejection of nominees, the CEO’s office has said government wants to ensure the right candidate is appointed so that previous issues are not repeated in the IEC.
“We expect the chairman of the secretariat to be a trusted and honest man … it was decided that the commission would refer more names to government, but so far we have not received any names,” said CEO spokesman Mujiburrahman Rahimi.
Former member of the IEC’s media commission Imam Mohammad Warimach, the former head of IEC public relations, Ahmadullah Archiwal, and Popal Habibi were the nominees rejected for the IEC secretariat position.
