The Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Wednesday said that mismanagement during the October 20 elections badly damaged the public’s trust in the election management bodies. 

The voter lists will be reformed and biometric identification devices will be used properly in the next elections, said IEC commissioner Sayed Hafiz Hashemi.

“People’s trust was damaged, there is no doubt about it, I am sure people’s trust was built on these processes, but it was damaged on 28 of Meza (20 October) and 29 Meza (21 October) and questions were raised over the abilities of the independent election commission,” said Hashemi.

The IEC said that it will officially announce the presidential elections calendar in two days.

Hashemi went on to say that the commission, after scrutinizing the standpoints of political parties, will announce the presidential election calendar.

Hashemi however said that the election commission learned lessons from shortcomings over parliamentary elections.

We are trying to regain the public’s trust, added Hashemi.

Meanwhile, a number of parliamentary election candidates in Logar province have accused IEC staff members of interfering in the election results.

“Currently kind of elections is going on in the election commission offices, this means votes of some people are increased and some others are decreased,” said a candidate from Logar Noor Zia.

“They (IEC) hired the most unskilled and incompetent people in Logar, there was no management or leadership,” said Rahim Amin, a candidate from Logar.

But, the IEC has pledged that the commission will take legal action against staff accused of violating election laws. 

“Friday is the final deadline for political parties and other institutions and the international community, if they have got any proposals, they can send it to us,” added Hashemi, in reference to presidential elections. 

The IEC said that votes from at least 23 provinces so far have been processed in the database and that the information of about 300,000 voters has been transferred from the biometric identification devices to the main servers.