Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah’s team on Tuesday set a three-day deadline for the election commission to meet their demand for removal of fraudulent votes.
Enayatullah Farehmand, Abdullah’s first vice-president candidate, warned that they would launch “new chapter of deterrence movements” if the commission fails to meet their demand until Saturday.
Abdullah’s team claims that IEC has added tens of thousands of votes to the count, which were cast outside polling hours or which had no biometric records.
The team has boycotted partial recounting process that was launched on November 9, with its supporters blocking the process in seven provinces.
Farehmand said that Abdullah had secured 51.89 percent in the election if only clean voted are counted.
This comes as IEC warned on Saturday that if the electoral teams continue to oppose the recount process, the commissioners will call for government intervention.
According to IEC officials, provincial offices are currently closed in seven provinces because of boycotting election team members. Some election tickets closed the IEC’s provincial offices in Faryab, Sar-e Pol, Jawzjan, Badakhshan, Panjshir, Baghlan and Takhar provinces. The IEC says the offices were closed by Abdullah Abdullah’s electoral team in protest of the recount.
“If this problem is not resolved, we will resort to constitution and the IEC mandate that allow us to ask for government cooperation to implement the election process in seven provinces,” said Mirza Mohammad Haqparast, the IEC spokesman.
