After a successful election in Afghanistan, now the Independent Election Commission (IEC) has the crucial task of counting and tallying votes and preparing the results. The biggest merit of April 5th polls is that it is has built confidence and raised hopes among the people of Afghanistan. Ballot boxes from across Afghanistan are being transferred to the center and the IEC personnel are having a hectic time in processing them. There have been some reports about ballot stuffing from certain provinces of Afghanistan. It is hoped the IEC will identify and quarantine them. People have played their part in a very well manner. It is IEC’s responsibility to arrange, in coordination with Afghanistan security forces, for safe transfer of ballot boxes to Kabul.
One Monday, IEC officials said that partial result of presidential election will be announced during this week. Based on its schedule, preliminary result of the election is due on April 24 while final results will made public on May 14. Since there is two-round voting system in Afghanistan therefore if none of the candidates is able to secure more than 50% of votes, runoff voting will occur on 28 for which the IEC will publish specific timeline.
Before the IEC announces the final result of presidential election, it will consider a final report from Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) that will be submitted to it on May 08. Meanwhile, ECC will be receiving electoral complaints from political parties and other people from April 07 to 27.
On Monday ECC official said they had received around 600 complaints regarding Saturday's elections. According to ECC head Abdul Satar Saadat, majority of complaints so far filed pertained to just five of the eight presidential candidates. "The complaints are mostly about Abdullah Abdullah, Ashraf Ghani, Zalmai Rassoul, Abdul Rab Rassoul Sayyaf and Gul Agha Sherzai. But we have not collected all complaints, there are complaints against all candidates." he added.
They added that special investigations had been launched to get to the bottom of ballot shortage issues that were reported at a number of centers around the country on the Election Day. Polling stations in certain provinces like Badakhshan, Balkh, Bamiyan, Herat, Ghazni and even Kabul ran out of ballot papers hours before voting time ended. As result of this shortage, thousands of Afghans remained deprived of casting their votes. The ECC must look into the matter carefully and find out reasons behind IEC’s miscalculation/mismanagement.
Presidential candidates and their supporters will be eagerly waiting for IEC to announce the final results of the election. It is hoped that IEC meets the deadline and comes up with a complete and carefully-prepared results after considering ECC’s reports.