KABUL - A number of former election officials and the Afghan public criticized the Independent Election Commission (IEC) this week for its supposed lack of effort to prevent fraud during this year's presidential election.

Some experts questioned how a high ranking official like Zia-ul-Haq Amarkhail, the former IEC Secretariat Chief, could have orchestrated large-scale fraud under the noses of nine commissioners. To be fair, Amarkhail has not been found guilty of any wrongdoing, despite the audiotape recordings presented by the Abdullah Abdullah team as evidence against him. But it was clear many place blame for the current impasse - with Abdullah refusing to accept the IEC's vote count - largely on the shoulders of the commission, which they consider to be either negligent or malfeasant, or a combination of the two.

Fazl Ahmad Manawee, a former Chairman of the IEC, said simply the leadership of the commission only think about their privileges rather than their responsibilities. "The members of the commission, unfortunately, paid attention to receiving privileges and making their appearance fashionable, so the main responsibilities were forgotten," Manawee said.

Since Abdullah's team begun launching accusations against the commission and the Presidential Palace after the runoff vote, many have joined in criticism of the handling of the election process. Amarkhail's resignation from his position and decision to leave the country with his family have not helped quell suspicions of the commission and it's involvement in electoral fraud.

A number of Kabul's residents who spoke to TOLOnews on Wednesday were even less generous than Manawee, suggesting that the entire process was rigged, not just neglected.

"There is a deal instead of justice, so I regret casting my vote," one man named Khairuddin told TOLOnews.

Supporters of Abdullah have gathered in the streets of Kabul over the past two weeks to protest the commission and the engineered fraud that they believe took place. While the demonstrations have remained relatively small and peaceful, threats of violence have been heard, raising concerns about possible clashes between the two camps over a disputed result.

Meanwhile, Ashraf Ghani-Ahmadzai and his supporters have remained confident in the commission and the process, expressing the hope that all fraudulent results will be filtered out.

In the wake of the Amarkhail controversy, IEC Chairman Ahmad Yusuf Nuristani has sought to distance his office and the rest of the IEC from the Secretariat. He has maintained that the Secretariat is an executive part of the commission and simply implements the decisions of the IEC. According to Nuristani, however, the Secretariat chooses temporary staff needed to support the election process on its own.

"The Secretariat itself decides on the recruitment of staff, so monitoring that is a little difficult," he said.

During the first round of the election in April, over 5,000 temporary IEC employees were found to have committed some sort of electoral impropriety.

Although they were supposedly prevented from working the second round, the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) again reported receiving a large amount of complaints against IEC employees following the runoff on June 14. (Tolonews)