With insecure, but the successful closure of runoff for the presidential election on former Saturday, it was assumed lesser frauds have had intervened the electoral ongoing. Conversely, the runoff entailed multiple cases of irregularities when one of presidential runner Dr. Abdullah raised serious objections against IEC’s credibility having a role in manipulating the election result following the vote count. Election certainly, encompasses manifold significance for both contenders, hence exercising efforts to manipulate the election results, can’t be ruled out. It is inculcated into the jurisdiction of IEC and ECC to undertake an impartial inquiry into accusations and duly address the labeled charges, before the aggreived contender called for public demonstration against the unaddressed charges and political crisis escalates.  

It was highly expected a fair election would be conducted under the supervision of assigned commission and incumbent government, following an agreeable and peaceful transition. Nevertheless, the charges labeled contains a certain degree of reality if not complete and should have dealt rationally. Contrarily, the commission and the government supporting their stance and justify their standing doesn’t worth a penny and have discredited their position. Instead, President Karzai by now, must have used his discretionary power, suspending the concerned person on charges of fraud, the issue would definitely shift towards congenial solution.

Previously, Dr. Abdullah’s camp was found to be solitary registering concerns. Nevertheless, formerly, Transparent Election Foundation of Afghanistan (TEFA) unearthed its findings about the elections with media at a press conference, that highlighted several cases of irregularities. The figure of voters disclosed by TEFA is not more than 6m which contradicts the 7m claims of IEC. The report also indicated that the runoff witnessed more challenges, riggings and violations compared to the first round. There are multiple facts and figures of irregularities highlighted by the aforementioned report, that included, stuffed ballot boxes in 218 centers in 16 provinces, double voting in 337 centers in 13 provinces, voting of ineligible people in 581 centers in 27 provinces, etc.

IEC claims a majority of election observer institutions have said that the runoff was more transparent than the first round. TEFA disagrees with the assertions. "Our findings show that the runoff had more problems compared to the first round," Ayoubzada of TEFA stated.

On the other hand, supporters of presidential hopeful Dr. Abdullah Abdullah on Saturday staged two separate protest demonstrations in Kabul, demanding the prosecution of those involved in the June 14 runoff fraud. Separately, a large number of women staged a demonstration in front of Zarnigar Park in support of the Reform and Unanimity team chanting slogans against fraud and rigging in the run-off whilst demanding the suspension of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) Secretary.

At this very time when the crisis is about to multiply, given the concerns are left unaddressed. The whole expectation refers to UN and credible international organizations, come forth and play their part in curtailing the political crisis by compiling a fairer result provided Afghanis rule out, fraud deciding their fate.