Rifts emerged between members of the Independent Election Commission as one of the commissioners called on Tuesday for a decision over the fate of quarantined votes before any recount of the ballots in the capital and provinces.
Mavlana Abdullah, a commissioner, said in a Facebook post that operations of the election commission should be based on transparency and compliance with electoral rules and regulations.
He stressed that the fate of 137,630 quarantined votes and 102,012 ballots cast beyond the voting time should be decided before any effort for the vote recount.
Abdullah also said the polling stations that require vote recount should be identified, and stressed that approval of general and sub plans for the operation by the Independent Election Commission is critical, warning that re-tallying ballots without those conditions in place can be problematic.
He said presence of IEC employees from the polling stations with a huge gap of valid and invalid votes in the recounting calls the process into question.
The commissioner’s stance resonates with the Stability and Convergence team which took the same stand on Monday.
The electoral ticket on Monday said some 300,000 fraudulent votes are still in the main server of the Independent Election Commission, urging the electoral body to invalidate them before beginning vote recount.
Noor Rahman Akhlaqi, an observer of Stability and Convergence ticket, told a press conference that around 137,630 votes had been entered into the biometric devices at least six days after the election day.
He said that more than 100,000 votes were recorded beyond the voting time and 70,000 votes didn’t meet photo criteria.
This comes as IEC on November 2 shared the report of the Darmalog Company on the number of valid and invalid votes, saying they were ready for the vote recount.
Afghanistan’ controversial presidential election was held on September 28, but IEC failed to announce the preliminary results even one month after the ballot was held. After being harshly criticized for missing the election schedule, IEC promised to declare the initial results of the vote on November 14.
Despite being the fourth presidential election since Taliban’s ouster, September 28 election drew the lowest turnout in Afghanistan’s election history due to security threats and distrust in transparency.
