Hundreds of Afghan Poll Candidates Fined

Hundreds of parliamentary poll candidates who had submitted their financial reports incompletely to Independent Election Commission were fined, ECC said on Tuesday

The spokesman for Electoral Complaints Commission, Ahmad Zia Rafat, said on Tuesday that the amount of money that should be paid by some candidates including a number of winning ones is around Afs500, 000 ($10,000).

As part of efforts against frauds in the polling process, the Independent Election Commission has recently introduced 1100 poll workers to ECC over allegations of electoral frauds.

Mr Rafat said the ECC is trying to disclose the identities of those involved in electoral frauds.

The ECC will cooperate in pursuit of election-linked criminal cases in case the Attorney General finds one, he said.

Meanwhile, the Secretariat of House of Representatives has said that the 16th round of National Council will be inaugurated soon.

Paper work of some 150 candidates with certificates have been completed, said officials in the Secretariat of House of Representatives.