Officials from the Central Statistics Organization (CSO) on Tuesday said based on President Ashraf Ghani’s decree they would be responsible for registering voters on the proposed biometric system and for collecting votes – but the Independent Election Commission is not happy about this.  

Hasibullah Movahid, technical deputy of CSO, said they are making preparations to register voters on a biometric system but that this is in no way interfering with the IEC’s affairs.

“This is not interfering in the election commission’s work. As other departments use our statistics, the election commission also can use the (voter) statistics whenever it needs to solve its problems. The statistics will be collected by CSO and will be saved in its database,” said Movahid. 

In August, Ghani issued a decree in which he ordered the CSO to take over technical issues relating to election day.

The IEC meanwhile hit back over the CSO’s remarks and said they will not allow any department to interfere in their affairs. 

IEC spokesman Sayed Hafizullah Hashemi said after the commission’s request, Ghani issued a decree in which he ordered relevant departments to provide technical assistance and systems to the IEC but that the commission would still be in control.

“The election commission will allow no department to interfere in its work. Collecting the statistics (votes) is the job of the commission,” said Hashemi. 

The institutions overseeing the election process meanwhile said assigning election commission’s affairs to other departments will question the independence of the election commission and willalso create confusion over who people should trust when it comes to the results of the elections. 

“Distribution of election management (duties) between CSO and IEC will create confusion. After the elections, who should people believe? The IEC or CSO?” Mohmmad Yusuf Rasheed, head of Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan said. 

This new development, between the CSO and the IEC, comes after months of tension between government and political parties. However, last week government agreed to one demand issued by the political party coalition on the use of a biometric system on election day.

The political parties continue however to assert that about five million of the nine million registered voters are ghost voters.