The National Unity Government (NUG) leaders have still not agreed on how to bring reforms to the electoral system and the establishment of the special electoral reform commission, a senior NUG official told TOLOnews.
In an exclusive interview with TOLOnews, second Vice President Sarwar Danish expressed that President Ashraf Ghani and CEO Abdullah Abdullah have not met with each other so far on electoral reforms.
So far, only the representatives from both leaders have held dialogues on the framework of reforms to the electoral system, he said, explaining that talks have been currently halted because of the Panjshir tragedy.
"So far, the president and the chief executive have not had any meetings on the electoral reforms, so how can we say there is a disagreement between them," Danish said, refuting reports about a division between the NUG leaders on the issue.
He, however, linked the changes in the electoral bodies to the amendments in the election law.
"Any changes occur in the law regarding the authorities and composition of election commissions will be implemented."
Moreover, he emphasized that the proposed reform commission would have the only duty to draft reform plans, not to bring changes in the system.
The need for electoral reforms emerged after a number of officials of electoral bodies were accused of paving grounds for massive frauds in last year's presidential election. Since then, the election monitoring groups have asked the government to identify the defrauders and dismiss them from their positions.
But the election officials emphasized on the reforms based on the law not political matters, urging the officials were appointed for six years based on the election law.
"We, the officials of the Electoral Complaints Commission, are being hired for six years based on the election law, and now if there is any decision being taken, it should occur based on the legal mechanisms," said Nadir Mohseni, Secretary of the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC).
One of the main points of agreements between Ghani and Abdullah to form the unity government was to bring reforms in the election system, something that has not been touched upon in the past five months.
Saleha Sadat
Source: http://www.tolonews.com/en/afghanistan/18424-no-talks-so-far-between-gha...
