The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan has formally complained about the behavior of Afghan election commissioner Maulana Abdullah in a letter addressed to the Independent Election Commission.
During a meeting between UN technical advisers and IEC officials, Abdullah made life-threatening statements against Bashir Ali, Database Manager for the National Tally Center and made derogatory slurs about his religion and ethnicity.
“The United Nations finds this kind of behavior completely unacceptable, and in direct contravention of Article 17 of the Election Law, which states that, Members of Commission are obliged to respect the highest interests of the country and provisions of the Constitution of Afghanistan in their decision making; and avoid all types of discriminations and prejudice on the basis of race, ethnicity, region, party, language, religion and gender,” UNAMA wrote in the letter.
It said that it was not the first time the commissioner had exhibited this kind of offensive behavior, but it was the first time that UN staff witnessed such an event.
UNAMA said that Maulana Abdullah had created “toxic working environment” and called on IEC to take appropriate and timely action to address the issue.
Maulana Abdullah, however, rejected the claim as lie.
Speaking at a press conference, the commissioner said that he would sue those who passed “wrong information” to UNAMA at “this critical juncture.”
