The Independent Election Commission (IEC) has announced that up to 4,000 new polling sites will be used during the runoff round. The campaigns of Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai and Abdullah Abdullah have met the news with a mixed response.
Both teams welcomed the news, but Abdullah representatives expressed concerns about opening up new sites in insecure areas and not in places that were included in the election during the first round but lacked adequate sites.
“According to our information, 4,000 additional sites have been considered with most of them in insecure regions, which means in the areas where we need additional sites, the number of new polling sites has not been increased, so we have concerns,” Abdullah campaign member Syed Fazel Aqa Sancharaki said on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Ashraf Ghani's campaign office stressed the importance of opening sites purely on the basis of certain area’s population size. They also expressed hope that there would be no ballot shortage issues in the runoff as there were in the first round.
“The opening of additional centers in the runoff will remove problems, because the issue was that some of the polling sites were located away from the voters, and additional sites will facilitate people,” Ghani campaign member Moin Marastyal said. “We hope that the IEC will take preemptive measures for the congested areas and adequate ballot papers must be available.”
Election officials have said that the new list of polling centers will soon be shared with security forces.
“Additional sites must be allocated for those areas where people remained deprived of voting on April 5, and a list of these centers should be shared with the candidates by the IEC,” commission spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor said.
The Ministry of Interior (MoI) has said that a comprehensive security plan has been formulated to provide sufficient security to the runoff, which will take place during the height of the summer fighting season.
“We are ready for the June 14 runoff, ANP will demonstrate the same dedication during the runoff, but what is of major importance to us is the cooperation of the people with police and their broader participation in the elections,” MoI spokesman Sediq Sediqi said.
Election observers have been adamant about the election commission’s correcting their mistakes from the first round when it comes to short-term employees and transparency.
With the runoff vote now less than a month away, the campaign season is just around the corner, expected to begin later this week. Election materials will be begin being distributed around the country closer to the Election Day.
Source/Fuente: http://www.tolonews.com/elections2014/runoff-candidates-react-additional...
