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| Afghanistan |
| ECC Moves Ahead Without Abdullah's Observers Present |
| 2014-07-10 |
| [Tolo News] The Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) will move ahead with its complaints investigations following the announcement of preliminary results earlier this week, and it will do so without presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah ... the former foreign minister of the Northern Alliance government, advisor to Masood, and candidate for president against Karzai. Dr. Abdullah was born in Kabul and is half Tadjik and half Pashtun... 's observers being present. Although the ECC, like the IEC, has defended the credibility of the process that has been overseen since the June 14 runoff election, some former election officials and monitoring groups have questioned whether vote counting and fraud investigations should be allowed to move forward while one of the candidates remains estranged from the commissions. As of now, the ECC will be reviewing only complaints filed by Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, and will do so without the presence Abdullah's observers. Abdullah's observers have been absent from the commissions for over three weeks, since he announced his decision to boycott the process until his concerns about fraud are addressed. "Elections commissions are making fun of the institution and people of Afghanistan," former IEC Chairman Fazel Ahmad Manawi said on Wednesday. "As you know, the election law says that any audit and review must be in the presence of candidates' representatives, but, unfortunately, the IEC continued its work in absence of Abdullah Abdullah representatives, and now the ECC is doing the same thing." But it appears disapproval of the way the process has been handled by the commissions does not stop at former members. Within the current IEC staff there appears to be some division over how best to proceed. |
| Posted by:Fred |