The Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) finalized their decision on the registered complaints after delaying three days. The ECC said that their verdict will be sent to the Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Tuesday.
“The reason behind the delay was because of the large number of complaints,” ECC Chairman Abdul Satar Saadat said. “And the public hearings took a total of six days."
Mr. Saadat added that after concluding the complaints process the presidential elections might go into a second round.
This comes as the IEC is scheduled to announce the final results of the April 5th presidential elections on Wednesday.
Prior to completing the investigation process, the election monitors and members of the general public have raised concerns about the delays of the ECC in releasing the findings of its investigations. As the country still awaits final results from the presidential election from over a month ago, some have said that if officials do not justify their delay, they could lose public confidence and threaten the success of the coming runoff round.
The ECC was originally expected to send the results of its complaints review process to the IEC by May 8, so that final vote results for the first round could be announced by May 14. However, now just a day before the scheduled announcement, the ECC still hasn’t submitted its findings, nor bothered to explain the delay.
Although the likely runoff round between the top two candidates - Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai - isn’t expected until early June now, election observers have raised issue with the unjustified delays, emphasizing the importance of transparency.
The fact that the ECC has been delayed while evaluating and determining the extent of fraud in the elections only raises the stakes of its actions.
Both leading candidates’ campaign teams called for neutrality from the ECC and asked that their complaints be weighed seriously.
Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani filed the majority of complaints submitted by candidates this year. Abdullah’s campaign registered complaints questioning the validity of votes from 1,600 polling sites, coming to an approximate total of 900,000 votes.
But neither of the top contenders was as critical of the ECC delay as election observers and members of the general public have been.
Source/Fuente: http://www.tolonews.com/elections2014/ecc-finalizes-complaints-review-af...
