A number of protesting candidates from different provinces of the country on Friday accused the Independent Election Commission (IEC) and the Independent Electoral Complaint Commission (IECC) of influencing the final results of the parliamentary elections.
The candidates who came to Kabul from Badakhshan, Kunar and Sar-e-Pul provinces claimed that there has been a widespread corruption in the election commissions. The candidates, who failed to succeed in the elections, said they have documents which provide “corruption” in the parliamentary polls.
Based on the documents, the candidates claimed, they had succeeded to secure a seat in the parliament after the announcement of the preliminary results, but they added that the results were manipulated after election officials “received money” from some winning candidates.
“After recounting of Badakhshan votes by the electoral complaints commission, my name appeared in the final list and I received congratulation messages via letters from the two election commissions and I have the letters,” claimed Islam Yaftali, a protesting candidate from Badakhshan.
The protesting candidates called on government to assign a delegation to assess their complaints; otherwise, they will use “any option” to acquire their rights.
“Why and based on what evidences and reasons the electoral complaints commission of Sar-e-Pul has announced our votes invalid?” asked Assadullah Ayubi, a protesting candidate from Sar-e-Pul.
“It is ‘shameful’ that after the names appeared in the system as winners, the (provincial) complaints commission went to the central office of the commission and there held meeting and took decision to take out one (candidate) from Badakhshan and another from Kunar from the winning candidates’ list,” said Saleh Mohammad Saleh, a protesting candidate from Kunar.
The Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA), meanwhile, said the announcement of elections results for Badakhshan, Kunar, Khost, Farah, Faryab and Nuristan provinces are full of “ambiguities”.
“They told our observers that (votes of) these provinces have problems. They said they will audit them in our presence and after the problems resolved, they will announce the results. They shared nothing with our colleagues and on that day after our observers returned to the office, they announced the results,” FEFA spokesperson Marwa Amini said.
The election commission, however, rejected any fraud and corruption allegations and said they did their job based on the law and that the results cannot be changed.
“The election commission took action based on the findings and decision of the electoral complaints commission,” said Abdul Aziz Ibrahimi, deputy spokesman for the IEC.
Around four months have been passed since October 20 and 21 parliamentary elections and so far, the election commission has announced the final results of 18 provinces.