The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) on Wednesday said that a high-level delegation is currently assessing complaints of electoral fraud submitted by various institutions and members of the public against former members of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) and Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC).
According to the AGO, the delegation is also gathering evidence of the alleged crimes.
“The first which our colleagues are working on is gathering evidence and clues and the legal assessment of the evidence and documents that we received from the security and intelligence agencies to see whether the evidence is credible and authentic,” said AGO spokesman Jamshid Rasuli.
Malik Qais is a candidate from eastern Nangarhar province. Qais who ran in the October 20 parliamentary elections says that the election commission committed major fraud against him during the process.
He said that over 10,000 votes were cast for him in the elections, but the election commission invalidated 4,000 of those votes.
The decision to invalidate the votes was signed off by only two commissioners including Sayed Hafiz Hashemi and Rafiullah Bedar, he said.
“Over 2,000 votes came out in the same center where they (election commissions) declared them suspicious, but the issue was later disclosed in the presence of the observers and monitors. I warmly welcomed that action was taken against these oppressors (election commissioners). I hope that the legal and judicial institutions serve justice and execute them,” said Qais.
Meanwhile, a number of lawmakers in parliament said they have also sent some evidence against the election commissioners to the attorney general’s office.
“Today we call on the legal and judicial institutions to punish these commissioners based on the laws of the country and the election law,” said Abdul Qader Zazai, an MP.
The election commissioners were removed from their posts after President Ashraf Ghani approved an amendment to the electoral law last week. According to Ghani’s decree, the two commissions are now being run by heads of the secretariats of the electoral bodies.
On Monday, the Election Support Group, which is comprised of election donor countries, issued a statement and called on the Afghan government to continue with the transparent selection of members of the election commissions.
Election observer organizations on Tuesday said that some former and incumbent members of the election commissions, who are accused of corruption and playing a role in irregularities in the parliamentary polls, have applied rejoin the electoral bodies, adding that this needs to be prevented in order to ensure transparency in the process.
This comes a week after the AGO banned election commissioners from travelling after they were removed from their posts following the amendment to the election law.
