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An official of the Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) on Thursday said that at least 20 percent of Kabul votes is not available for their assessment as they have assessed 80 percent of the votes which were included in 2,500 result sheets. 

At least four million people cast their ballots in parliamentary elections last October, almost one quarter of it was belonged to Kabul, according to the Independent Election Commission.    

Mohammad Qasim Elyasi, a spokesman for the IECC, said some candidates will lose votes if the missing result sheets are not found. 

“Possibly, they (former IECC officials) might have destroyed the result sheets of the first day of elections at the recounting process. Or possibly the result sheets might be in the election commission’s storages, such as the storage number 5 which was not sealed and was suspected for us and we did not consider it credible. Or some of the result sheets might be in the system. Today, we sent a separate letter (to the election commission) to make this 20 percent of result sheets available for us,” Elyasi explained in an address to reporters on Thursday. 

IEC officials said they have started entering the assessed results into the database. 

Some members of electoral monitoring organizations who monitor the results entry into the election commission's database said the missing votes are belonged to 483 polling stations. 

“Twenty percent of the result sheets are missing, and we are worried that the result sheets might belong to the areas where some candidates might have high votes. But now the result sheets are missing, and the election commissions should find a solution to the problem,” said Mohammad Qais Yasini, representative of an election observer organization. 

Last December, the former IECC leadership announced Kabul votes invalid due to widespread fraud allegations, but the decision was contradicted by the IEC. Now, some elections observers say that the invalidation decision might have been taken based on political pressure and the decision might have caused the 20 percent of the result sheets to be lost. 

“Because they did not allow us and have not told us that why they have invalidated the votes, we doubt that the decision might not have been a technical decision and instead the decision might have been taken based on political pressure or based on the commission’s interests,” said Mohammad Naeem Asghari, operational head of the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan. 

Sayed Esmatullah Mal, deputy head of the IEC, said they will try to maintain justice regarding Kabul elections. 

“We submitted all the available documents to the IECC. Unfortunately, some documents have not arrived from polling centers and stations to the IEC and I do not know what has happened to some other documents as well and it is not clear to us,” said Mal. 

Kabul parliamentary elections were held in over 500 polling centers on October 20 and 21 and although over six months have been passed since the poll, the final results have not been announced. 

Due to delay in Kabul elections results, Afghanistan’s parliament has faced problems in electing its administrative board and the speaker. 

An official of the Independent Election Commission said some documents were not transferred from polling centers to the electoral body during elections.   

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An official of the Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) on Thursday said that at least 20 percent of Kabul votes is not available for their assessment as they have assessed 80 percent of the votes which were included in 2,500 result sheets. 

At least four million people cast their ballots in parliamentary elections last October, almost one quarter of it was belonged to Kabul, according to the Independent Election Commission.    

Mohammad Qasim Elyasi, a spokesman for the IECC, said some candidates will lose votes if the missing result sheets are not found. 

“Possibly, they (former IECC officials) might have destroyed the result sheets of the first day of elections at the recounting process. Or possibly the result sheets might be in the election commission’s storages, such as the storage number 5 which was not sealed and was suspected for us and we did not consider it credible. Or some of the result sheets might be in the system. Today, we sent a separate letter (to the election commission) to make this 20 percent of result sheets available for us,” Elyasi explained in an address to reporters on Thursday. 

IEC officials said they have started entering the assessed results into the database. 

Some members of electoral monitoring organizations who monitor the results entry into the election commission's database said the missing votes are belonged to 483 polling stations. 

“Twenty percent of the result sheets are missing, and we are worried that the result sheets might belong to the areas where some candidates might have high votes. But now the result sheets are missing, and the election commissions should find a solution to the problem,” said Mohammad Qais Yasini, representative of an election observer organization. 

Last December, the former IECC leadership announced Kabul votes invalid due to widespread fraud allegations, but the decision was contradicted by the IEC. Now, some elections observers say that the invalidation decision might have been taken based on political pressure and the decision might have caused the 20 percent of the result sheets to be lost. 

“Because they did not allow us and have not told us that why they have invalidated the votes, we doubt that the decision might not have been a technical decision and instead the decision might have been taken based on political pressure or based on the commission’s interests,” said Mohammad Naeem Asghari, operational head of the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan. 

Sayed Esmatullah Mal, deputy head of the IEC, said they will try to maintain justice regarding Kabul elections. 

“We submitted all the available documents to the IECC. Unfortunately, some documents have not arrived from polling centers and stations to the IEC and I do not know what has happened to some other documents as well and it is not clear to us,” said Mal. 

Kabul parliamentary elections were held in over 500 polling centers on October 20 and 21 and although over six months have been passed since the poll, the final results have not been announced. 

Due to delay in Kabul elections results, Afghanistan’s parliament has faced problems in electing its administrative board and the speaker. 

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