The Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Wednesday reiterated its call to the Afghan government to step up efforts over the appointment of a new member of the IEC to lead the election management body of the country.

IEC secretariat chief said that members of the commission are not in a position to conduct internal elections and pick someone as the new chief of the body.

Meanwhile, election monitoring groups and observers have accused the IEC of mismanagement and poor performance  in the election process, adding that currently all proceedings of the election commission do not have legal credibility and legitimacy.

The IEC will ignore all reservations and will decide on the fate of one member of the election if the presidential palace does not take action in the near future, said IEC spokesman Abdul Badi Sayyad.

“It is the authority of the president to use all options and appoint someone in the commission so that the works are done appropriately,” said Sayyad.

Legal experts meanwhile have said that the president by ignoring the name of 14 candidates who were previously shortlisted has violated the law. They said that the decisions which are taken now by the IEC have not legal grounds.

“The president does not value the provisions of the law, the decisions which are taken these days have not legal basis. The commission is facing a legal and administrative vacuum,” added legal expert Abdul Subhan Misbah.

“They (IEC) officials wait for the government to find them a chief,” said former IEC chief Fazel Ahmad Manavi.

“They are not in sync with the government and this indicates their poor performance. They are weak to conduct elections and they wait for government to appoint for them the 7th member and also this new member should be their leader,” said Yusuf Rashid, head of the Transparent Election Foundation of Afghanistan.

This comes 45 days after President Ashraf Ghani dismissed Najibullah Ahmadza as head of the election commission over poor performance.