Officials from the Independent Election Commission (IEC) and the Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) on Monday said that the technical work on the results of parliamentary elections for Kabul have been wrapped up and that the electoral bodies are trying to announce the results on Tuesday. 

The IECC officials said that the body will take a decision on the results of at least 200 polling stations in Kabul where ballot papers are not available. 

“Technical works have completed. We are trying to complete rest of the work. We will announce it, we will not delay Kabul results at any cost,” said Habiburrahman Nang, head of the IEC secretariat.

He said the number of polling stations where ballot papers are missing is less than 10 percent.

There are reports that the results of 200 polling stations were written on normal papers. But the IECC officials said the commission so far has not issued its verdict on these results. 

Meanwhile, some parliamentary candidates on Monday staged a demonstration outside the IEC headquarters in Kabul. 

“There are some stations which remained closed due to threats. On these districts, the votes of the polling stations which remained missing make less than 10 percent of the total votes,” said Mohammad Yunus Tughra, member of the IEC.

“When votes of the president went missing in this country, the vote of chief executive went missing, then how can we trust that our votes remain in its place?” asked Safia Sediqqi, a protesting candidate.

This comes after on February 12, all commissioners from the two electoral commissions – the Independent Election Commission (IEC) and the Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) – were dismissed from their posts, including the two chiefs, after President Ashraf Ghani signed off on an amendment to the electoral law. 

The former election commissioners have been accused of corruption and their cases have been handed to the Attorney General’s Office and have been banned from traveling outside the country. So far, it is not clear whether judicial organizations have started investigation into the allegations against the election commissioners.

In March, the IECC said that based on new amendments in the election law, decisions of the IECC on complaints lodged against the electoral body will not be final and that a special court will probe complaints against the decisions made by the two commissions.