On the fourth day of its open review, the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) on Tuesday addressed 80 complaints from Badakhshan, Takhar, Kunduz and Baghlan provinces in the presence of presidential campaign representatives. Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani’s campaigns claimed the ECC failed to consider all the complaints that had been filed.
ECC officials were adamant about reminding the candidates' representatives and the general public that they were neutral in their work and would not give preferential treatment to anyone in making their decisions.
“We are not support a particular candidate, we don’t have enmity or friendship with any of the candidates, and if we are friends, we are friends with everyone," ECC chief Abdul Satar Sadat said on Tuesday. "We are addressing the bad votes as they impact the result of the elections; voting is the right of a citizen and fraudulent votes do not represent them.”
Meanwhile, representatives from the Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani campaigns - the two leading contenders expected to meet in a runoff round in early June - expressed concerns about the ECC and whether or not all complaints were being given due consideration.
“Complaints from other places have not been addressed, and complaints registered against us did not have any supporting evidence," Abdullah campaign representative Zelgai Sajad said on Tuesday. "For example, complaints from a center in Badakhshan, 1723315, were not provided with any evidence; the ECC is silent on the complaints from Badakhshan."
Both campaign teams seemed particularly concerned with complaints from the northeastern province of Badakhshan, which filled headlines around the world this week after suffering a severe landslide that buried an entire village.
“Officials said there were 15 complaints from Badakhshan, while there were in fact over 80 complaints," Ashraf Ghani campaign representative Engineer Bashir said. "There are 22 complaints from our team for which we have enough documents to support."
The ECC is expected to wrap-up its open complaints review by Saturday, and the the results will be sent to the Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Sunday.
Source/Fuente: http://www.tolonews.com/elections2014/ecc-reviews-northeastern-complaints
