Breach of IEC’s Digital Center Unacceptable: MPs

Lawmakers in Afghanistan’s parliament on Wednesday lashed out at the special units of the Afghan police forces for their alleged involvement in breaching the digital center of the Independent Election Commission (IEC), saying the move is not acceptable.

The parliament speaker Mir Rahman Rahmani ordered the head of the parliament’s Internal Security Commission to take steps.

“The duty of the special units is the suppression of Daesh and the Taliban. But because of their bullying approach and other tyrannical moves, the parliament’s Internal Security Commission should summon the minister of interior and the deputy minister of interior for security to clarity it,” said Rahmani.

Nevertheless, officials from the Stability and Convergence election campaign, which is led by incumbent CEO Abdullah Abdullah, suggested that those police officers who were involved in the breach be suspended and investigated.

The Election Commission has said that it will make the final decision once the investigation of the break-in are complete.

“Mr. Awrang and Mr. Mawlana are part of the delegation; works are underway; we are trying to inform the Afghan people about the outcome of the probe soon,” said IEC commissioner Rahima Zarifi.

This comes two days after the Stability and Convergence Party alleged that security forces, in collaboration with a “particular election campaign,” and by the order of the Independent Election Commission’s secretary chief, picked the digital lock protecting the IEC’s digital center on Sunday and entered the facility.

“They should be summoned by the law and investigated,” said Ali Ahmad Osmani, head of the Stability and Convergence Team.

But Habiburrahman Rahmani, the head of the Election Commission’s secretariat, was not ready to comment on the allegation.

“We are now at a critical stage of the elections. Any mistake by anyone in this stage could have serious repercussions on the elections,” said Mohammad Yousuf Rashid, head of the Free and Fair Election Forum of Afghanistan.

The IEC has already confirmed that the commission’s digital center was breached on Sunday night. The center was then put in lockdown for two days.