The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) on Tuesday imposed a travel ban on five senior officials of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) over alleged involvement in electoral fraud, the AGO spokesman Jamshed Rasuli confirmed.
According to a document obtained by TOLOnews, the five individuals include Ahmad Shah Zamanzai, former head of the secretariat of the Independent Election Commission (IEC), Awalurrahman Rodwal, former head of the IEC operations, Abdul Aziz Samim, deputy head of the operations, Sayed Ebrahim Sadat, head of the IT department of the IEC, and Zmarai Qalamyar, head of IEC’s field operations.
The AGO has directed Afghan border police not to allow those banned to exit the country, the AGO spokesman said.
The move follows a similar decision in February after the AGO slapped similar restrictions on 12 commissioners of the IEC and the Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC).
According to the AGO, investigations are underway on a regular basis against former IEC chief Abdul Badi Sayyad, former IEC commissioners Wasima Badghisi, Maazullah Dawlati, Hafizullah Hashemi, Maliha Hassan, Rafiullah Bedar, and Abdul Qader Qureshi.
Rasuli said investigations are also underway against the former head of the IECC, Abdul Aziz Ariaee, and members of the commission Humaira Haqmal, Ali Reza Rouhani, Ghulam Dastagir Hedayat, Abdul Baseer Fayez.
The former election commissioners were removed after President Ghani last month approved new amendments in the election law based on which new commissioners were appointed for the two electoral bodies.
So far, the Independent Election Commission has announced the final results of parliamentary elections for 18 provinces and the results for another 15 provinces are yet to be announced.
The parliamentary elections faced allegations of fraud and irregularities by a number of candidates, the people and electoral monitoring organizations.
This comes as former election commissioners have been accused of corruption and their cases have been handed to the Attorney General’s Office and were banned from traveling outside the country.
