The voting process for appointment of the new election commissioners and heads of the two commissions' secretariat was held at the Presidential Palace on Friday.
The result of the voting by 17 presidential candidates show that the following names have received the highest votes.
- Sayed Esmatullah Mal – 9 vote
- Mawlana Abdullah – 9 votes
- Mohammad Qasim Elyasi – 8 votes
- Awrang Zib – 8 votes
- Musafir Quqandi – 8 votes
- Hawa Alam Nuristani – 8 votes
- Habiburrahman Nang – 8 votes
- Mohammad Yunus Toghra – 8 votes
- Chaman Shah Etimadi – 8 votes
- Mohammad Zakir Zaki – 7 votes
- Mohammad Hanif Danishyar – 7 votes
- Geti – 7 votes
- Zuhra Bayan Shinwari – 7 votes
- Sayed Qutbuddin Roydar – 7 votes
The appointment of the candidates will be announced within the next 48 hours, considering gender and ethnicity issues.
This comes after 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.
Ghani approved the amendment on February 20, which resulted in the instant dismissal of the commissioners – including IEC chief Abdul Badi Sayyad and IECC Aziz Azizullah Aryayee.
The election law has 109 articles and 17 chapters and according to sources, a number of these articles have been amended.
The commissioners – 12 in total - were appointed to the posts in November 2016 as part of government’s efforts to ensure transparent and fair parliamentary elections.
However, the elections – held in October – were allegedly riddled with fraud and mismanagement.
This move comes amid ongoing criticism leveled at the commissioners who have still not released the final results for October’s elections for 15 provinces.
The commissioners – 12 in total - were appointed to the posts in November 2016 as part of government’s efforts to ensure transparent and fair parliamentary elections.
However, the elections – held in October – were allegedly riddled with fraud and mismanagement.