KABUL - The chief observer of European Union Election Assessment Team (EU EAT), Thijs Berman, on Monday praised the courage of Afghans for using their right of suffrage on the June 14 presidential runoff but stressed the people's vote integrity should be preserved.
"Undeterred by violence, Afghans confirmed their commitment to democracy while continued efforts are still needed to preserve people's vote integrity," Thijs Berman said at a press conference here.
More than 7 million Afghans, according to Ahmad Yusuf Nuristani, the chairman of Afghan Election Commission, cast their votes in the second-round balloting on Saturday amid Taliban threats to elect a new president to replace the outgoing president, Hamid Karzai.
More than 250 people including 49 civilians had been killed on the runoff day and fingers of 11 persons had been chopped by Taliban as punishment for having voted, according to media reports.
"The EU EAT strongly condemns all violent incidents perpetrated against the election process that also led to the loss of life. Election officials, candidate representatives, domestic observers and voters that carried out their duties in such difficult circumstances are to be commended," Berman went on to say.
In his address, the chief observer said that the "IEC ( Independent Election Commission) has brought important improvement between the first and second round of elections, voting became better accessible with more polling stations and increased transparency."
However, he stated, "Despite the significant increase of the number of polling stations and ballot papers for the runoff, the IEC was not able to fully address the issue of ballot paper shortage."
On Saturday, when the voting was underway, many people in Kabul and from provinces complained that the ballot papers had run out at several polling stations before noon and the Election Commission had failed to replenish timely.
Voting in the presidential runoff begun at 7:00 a.m. local time on Saturday and lasted until 4:00 p.m. across Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, the EU chief observer pointed out that the first round of presidential elections on April 5 illustrated the IEC's difficulty in enforcing a transparent operational model based on existing regulations, adding in the first round the IEC did not publish detailed results per polling station in a timely manner, which contributed to limiting the ability of candidates to access legal remedies.
"The EU EAT notes that the IEC has stated its intention to guarantee full transparency in tallying, and to publish online numerical results by polling station when announcing partial, preliminary and final results for the second round," the chief observer emphasized. (Xinhua)