KABUL - The comprehensive vote auditing process agreed to by the two presidential candidates as part of a deal to get the election process back on track was set to begin on Tuesday. However, the Chairman of the Independent Election Commission (IEC), Ahmad Yousaf Nuristani, has reported that the vote auditing will not start on time.

"The planning for vote auditing started yesterday, but the process will be initiated physically in a few days," said election commission spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor on Monday.

No further results will be announced until the vote auditing process is completed, according to the deal made between Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai with the help of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry late last week. Meaning, the audit will now take center stage as the focal point of the election process.

The United Nations is expected to be closely involved in the audit, and its branch in Afghanistan has provided a rundown of what the audit will look like based on Afghan law, the terms of the agreement made between the candidates and the UN's recommendations.

The UN has explained the vote auditing process as so:

• Based on the agreements between the two candidates, 100 percent of votes will be audited, amounting to 8,000,000 votes from 23,000 polling sites.
• ISAF is responsible for transferring all ballot boxes from the provinces to Kabul for auditing and they will be stored and secured in hangers at Kabul International Airport by ISAF and the Afghan security forces
• International observers will oversee the auditing process in a manner that was recommended by the UN and in consultation with the candidates.
• The two campaign teams will oversee the auditing process in a manner which was recommended by the UN and representatives of the candidates will be allowed to have access to ballot boxes under the supervision of ISAF and the Afghan security forces.
• The vote auditing process will be conducted in accordance to UN recommendations based on international standards as well as the IEC's checklist.
• The election commission will provide an explanation about the difference in participation numbers from first round to second round, and from the runoff election day to the announcement of preliminary results before the auditing comes to an end.
• A new IEC Secretariat Chief will be selected with the approval of the two candidates

The UN has made the following recommendations for the audit process:

• Based on the UN vote auditing method, the vote auditing should be conducted in the presence of domestic and international observers, representatives of media outlets, observers and media.
• Any questions regarding the audit that are now put to rest will be referred to the UN
• Auditing will be conducted on the basis of the IEC checklist, but augmented by UN recommendations
• Result sheets should be compared with the results registered in the IEC database
• All suspicious sheets and sheets referred to by complaints should be audited
• Result sheets marked with a single pen should be audited and for all sites where the number of votes registered increased dramatically from the first round

Both Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani have emphasized that the auditing should begin as soon as possible and have stressed that if the election commission conducts the auditing according to the UN's plan, the results would be credible.

"We have offered a number of recommendations to the UN and the commissions, if the commissions act upon these recommendations, the results would be acceptable," Fazel Ahmad Manavi, a technical member of Abdullah's campaign team said.

"Once the process start, there shouldn't be delays and there shouldn't be a break in the process," a member of Ashraf Ghani's camp named Azita Raffat said.

The IEC has said it has put together 100 two-person teams for the vote auditing process and that each team will have one assistant. (Tolonews)