MAZAR-I-SHARIF - Balkh governor Atta Mohammad Noor on Tuesday said the April 5 elections had been a success, but some election officials had not been impartial when it came to results.

Noor was addressing a gathering in Mazar-i-Sharif to pay tributes to security forces for their efforts to protect voters and polling sites during the elections.

Security and government officials and tribal elders attended the gathering at the Governor’s House.

Noor praised security forces, saying their role during the elections was commendable.

He said the past 13 years had passed successful in Afghanistan, except a few opportunities not fully utilised.

Noor said President Karzai should be praised for his services to the nation over the past 13 years, saying the president had brought in many things to an empty Afghanistan.

However, he was not happy with the election results, saying complaints in Balkh about electoral irregularities had not been true.

“I don’t say the entire election and the complaints commission are composed of wrongdoers, but among them there are officials who had not been impartial and had committed ignorant and fraudulent acts.”

As an instance, Noor said 100,000 votes were invalidated within two days in western Herat province.

He said people had enthusiastically taken part in the elections, but their sentiments were played with and their wish to elect a president dishonoured.

“How can these votes be declared null and avoid in two days. How did they find time to do so when complaints were registered 10 days ago?,” he asked. Noor said similar incidents had taken place in much of Afghanistan.

About the elections in Balkh, the governor said all but two polling centres had run out of ballot papers. There were no other problems, he said.

Thousands of people could not vote in Balkh because ballot papers could not reach them, he said, and wondered when ballot papers were not available then what prompted fraud.

“I have received some complaints from Kabul accusing me of closing a polling centre and stuffing ballot boxes by my bodyguards. For God sake, who can do this?”

In a reference to the Independent Election Commission and the Independent Electoral Complaints Commission, Noor said the two bodies should avoid telling lies and bringing themselves under question.

He said ballot boxes from Balkh had been recounted multiple times in Kabul as part of a plot against Abdullah Abdullah.

“Playing and tempering with the votes of people is playing with a lion, with a dragon and with the future. Nothing will go unquestioned,” Noor said.

Noor’s accusation against the IEC comes the day the IECC said fraudulent votes had been cast in Balkh.

Talking to reporters in Kabul, IECC spokesman Nader Muhseni rejected Noor’s allegations.

IEC Secretary Ziaul Haq Amarkhel said they had been impartial until now and would maintain their impartiality. (Pajhwok)