The Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Thursday said that the presidential candidates must respect the election procedures and rules during the runoff campaigns. IEC added that any violations of the election rules would lead to legal action.
According to the IEC code of conduct, the candidates are not allowed to talk about ethnic divisions, misuse government resources, insult one another and invite government officials to the campaigns. The candidates are expected to allocate no more than 10 million AFN for their campaign expenditures. Additionally, all their campaign activities need to end 48 hours before the Election Day.
"The candidates and their supporters are not allowed to talk about ethnic divisions and their expenditures must be conducted in accordance to the law," IEC head Noor Mohammad Noor said.
The Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) also emphasized IEC's statements and added that any violations would result in legal action.
“The central and provincial headquarters maintain responsibility to register complaints during campaigns,” Technical Deputy of ECC Wali Akbar Sarwari said. "Violations would be investigated as per guidance of the law and violators will be prosecuted."
Moreover, some other election observer institutions such as the Free and Fair Election Forum of Afghanistan (FEFA) have called on the candidates to respect people's demands during campaigns.
“Runoff campaigns are quite important because candidates must focus on the demands of the people and provide convincing responses to them,” FEFA Spokesman Fahim Naeemi said on Thursday.
"Candidates should thoroughly explain their platforms about peace restoration, settlement of economic challenges and political stability in the country."
The statements from the election observer institutions come in response to some violations of the election code of conduct during the first round of the elections.
Source/Fuente: http://www.tolonews.com/elections2014/candidates-must-respect-election-p...
