The Independent Electoral Complaints Commission of Afghanistan (IECC) on Wednesday said that over the past week it has registered dozens of complaints on the nature of the assessment of polling stations by the Independent Election Commission (IEC).

It has extended the deadline for the registration of complaints for another two weeks for people across the nation to register their concerns.

IECC secretary, Ali Reza Rouhani, said over the past week the IECC registered dozens of complaints from Kabul.  However, at the moment, there are no exact details of the number of complaints being registered in the provinces.

Meanwhile, the office of Abdullah Abdullah, the CEO of the national unity government, has rejected the allegations about the interference of the government in the work of the election commission. It reiterated the government’s will for holding the elections in a free and transparent manner.

The IECC previously had been given ten days for the registration of the complaints about the assessment of the polling stations.

“Some complaints have been registered in our central office in Kabul, but others have been recorded in our provincial offices and they will be reaching us soon. The complaints are apparently from insecure regions where polling centers have been destroyed,” said Ali Reza Rouhani, IECC secretariat chief.

Based on the report of the operations department of the IEC, the polling stations in the provinces have not been determined in a transparent way.

“The monitoring institutions were not provided the opportunity to monitor the assessment of polling centers. The necessary standards have not been considered,” said Jandad Spinghar, head of Afghan Civil Society Election Network.

Some lawmakers in the parliament have called on the government not interfere in the work of the election commission.

They warned that any delay in the elections will push the country towards crisis.

“If the next elections are not conducted with transparency, like the previous elections, the country will be pushed to the crisis,” said MP Sadiqi Neelizada.

“It is the responsibility of the government of Afghanistan to conduct the elections in a transparent way,” said parliament speaker Abdul Rauf Ibrahimi.

Abdullah, however, confirmed the pessimism among the institutions and the political parties about the work of the election commission, but he said that the government is firmly committed to conducting the poll on time.

The IEC previously announced the election date for parliamentary and district council elections as 7 July 2018. But IEC members say that there is a possibility that these elections are delayed for a short period of time.