Abdullah Abdullah-led electoral ticket lodged over 4,000 complaints with the Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) on Monday, the first day of the three-day timeframe for complaints registration, as the team had already rejected the announced preliminary results of the September 28 presidential election.
Around three months after the election was held, Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Sunday declared the initial results of the controversial vote.
According to the primary results, incumbent President Ashraf Ghani secured 50,64% of all ballots putting him on the course for second term in office. His main competitor and current Chief Executive Officer, Abdullah Abdullah won 39.52% of all valid votes.
However, Abdullah rejected the results, saying his team would win the election if fraudulent votes were removed.
His team on Monday lodged more than 4,000 complaints with IECC aimed at separating fraudulent and genuine votes.
Deputy Chairman of IECC, Mulavi Din Mohammad Azimi, said the commission will adjudicate the complaints in the light of applicable laws and regulations.
“We will address their complaints in light of the law. The reasons they have will be investigated, and those with evidences will be tackled.”
Shafiqullah Saighani, a representative of Abdullah-led Stability and Convergence team, said IEC had not met their legal demands, adding that their complaints included some categories they had already asked IEC to address.
“IEC did meet our legal demands, so we put them in the form for complaints,” he said.
The three-day process of registering complaints is scheduled to end on Wednesday.
Yusuf Rashid, executive director of Free and Fair Election Forum of Afghanistan, called on the IECC to impartially and legally address complaints in order to ensure fairness.
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who followed Abdullah with 3.85 percent of votes, also protested the result which he described as false.
Hekmatyar said that a fresh election in certain areas and a full recount should have been held.
He warned of protests which he said could lead to collapse of the government if his demands were not met.
