The Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) on Thursday concluded a five day open hearing of electoral complains. Spokesman Nadir Mohseni said at least 900 complaints directly impacting results were reviewed over the course of the process, and the conclusions of the commission would be finalized by next week .
According to Mohseni, more than 2,000 complaints were registered by the ECC, but less than half of them fell in Category A, the kind of complaints that could possibly change results.
Based on the election timeline, the ECC has to submit its final decision on fraud and complaints by May 8 to the Independent Election Commission (IEC). But the ECC has said that it will submit its final decision to the IEC next week instead, on account of the two-day delay to the announcement of preliminary results last week.
“We made investigating complaints that would impact election results our top priority,” Mohseni said. “The remaining complaints will be assessed in the coming days.”
Meanwhile, the campaign teams of Ashraf Gahni Ahmadzai, Abdullah Abdullah and Zalmai Rassoul have shared video footage and other evidence with the ECC in an attempt to expose fraud and ballot box stuffing. They claimed the IEC did not pursue full transparency in its auditing of election results.
“We have documents that show that the figures registered by the IEC are different, but the IEC has counted them all,” Abdullah campaign member Zalgai Sajjad said.
“Abdullah Abdullah’s campaign complained that Abdullah’s votes are much less in Khost province, but we also have complaints, because votes for Ashraf Ghani are much less in Panjshir province - the total number of is only 169,” Ghani election campaign member Mohammad Qasim Halimi said.
The ECC has said that from the total number of complaints, twelve complaints filed by Abdullah Abdullah have not yet been investigated but would be in the coming days.
The ECC conducted its review process in the presence of candidate representatives, media and civil society groups. Election officials had come under fire previously for not granting candidates, media and observers full access to the vote counting process.
Source/Fuente: http://www.tolonews.com/elections2014/ecc-ends-open-complaints-review
