Presidential candidate and Hizb-e-Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar at a press conference on Monday in Kabul said that 44 percent of the presidential election votes are not valid.
“44 percent of the votes are fraudulent and are non-biometric votes, which is about 1.2 million of the votes,” Hekmatyar said.
“The presidential election was full of fraud,” Hekmatyar said, adding that data from hundreds of documents from the polling centers is gone.
Referring to IEC reports of “lost” or “missing” biometric devices (used to verify the identity of voters), Hekmatyar claimed: “The biometric devices have been stolen, they aren’t ‘missing,’”
“When people knew that their rivals had more votes at a certain polling station, they stole the devices,” Hekmatyar said.
As previously reported, the timestamp on the biometric devices can be manipulated, and Hekmatyar alleged:
“Data was entered into the biometric devices during the night before the election voting began.”
He believes that “police chiefs, district governors and the IEC employees” are involved in election fraud.
“A powerful commission or court must be formed, which consults with presidential candidates, to investigate the election crimes and fraud,” Hekmatyar said, insisting that “The Attorney General’s Office and other judicial bodies are not able to investigate the fraud and election crimes.”
“Recounting the votes will not solve the election issue,” he said.
