The Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Wednesday said the election management body has resumed the recounting process of Kabul votes following an agreement with the Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) on a new method aimed at ensuring transparency and credibility of the votes.
Based on the new method, after this, the two commissions will share all information and data about the elections in Kabul in order to make sure that transparency and legitimacy of the process is safeguarded.
Last week, the IECC invalided all votes for Kabul due to “widespread fraud” and irregularities in the process.
But the decision drew strong retaliation from IEC and the commission described the move illegal and a politically-motivated decision.
Later on, Second Vice President Mohammad Sarwar Danish intervened and the two commissions agreed on a new way to recount the votes for Kabul.
“Technical experts from the two commissions have agreed on a new framework in the secretariat level,” said Sayed Hafiz Hashemi, head of IEC secretariat.
“The recounting process will be carried out in line with a specific plan on a daily basis,” said IECC spokesman Ali Reza Rouhani.
Meanwhile, election monitoring organizations said the new method should be applied on the votes of all provinces.
“This process should have been carried out from the beginning. We raised our concerns regarding the issue over several occasions. The two commissions needed to work on a common mechanism so that a single procedure could apply on all provinces,” said Yousuf Rasheed, head of Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan.
“Same people will resume the vote counting process. I don’t think that the recounting process is carried out in a transparent way,” said Yaqoot Khan, an election observer.
According to the IEC, the new method will be applied on 10 percent of all votes from Kabul.
The IEC said the remaining 90 percent of the votes for Kabul do not need recounting.
So far the IEC has announced the preliminary results of parliamentary elections for 23 provinces.