KABUL - Afghanistan's electoral crisis has dragged two prominent U.S. Senators to Kabul to find an end to the electoral deadlock.
Senator John McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham visited Kabul on Thursday evening and met with presidential candidates Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai in separate meetings.
Abdullah's campaign team has expressed satisfaction over their meeting with the U.S. senators and is said to have discussed the issue of electoral fraud, emphasizing on the transparency of the elections.
"The American senators wanted to know more about the election situation, emphasizing that they support transparent elections that is acceptable to all," Abdullah's campaign spokesman, Syed Aga Sancharaki, said. "The senators understand the widespread fraud and are in favor of auditing the votes so that they are acceptable to both candidates."
Ghani's campaign team also expressed satisfaction over discussions with the U.S. Senators, stating that the American senators emphasized on the transparency within the framework of the election timeline.
"Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham emphasized on election transparency within the election timeline," Ghani's campaign spokesman, Abbas Nawyan, said.
Meanwhile, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) has announced that ballots from over 2,000 sites will be reviewed. The United Nations (UN) representative to Afghanistan has welcomed the decision to review the votes, stating that the UN will continue its support for the elections.
"The UN welcomed IEC's decision to review a number of sites, and meanwhile, take preparations and measures to ensure further transparency of the process and separate clean votes from fraudulent ones," the UN Spokesman in Afghanistan, Nazeefullah Salarzai, said.
Meanwhile, the technical and political committees from both presidential campaigns were to meet on Friday to discuss ways to address the election issues.
"A meeting between the technical and political committees of both teams will help create mechanisms to address the issue of fraud," Sancharaki said.
Ghani's spokesman expressed similar optimism as the opposing team.
"Our technical and political teams will make efforts to bring back the Reform and Integration team [Abdullah's campaign team] to the election process," Nawyan stated.
Both John McCain and Lindsey Graham are big supporters of U.S. presence and the war against terrorism in Afghanistan. (Tolonews)