KABUL - the Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Monday announced that the votes of 1,028 polling sites have been invalidated throughout the 100 percent vote audit process.

During the announcement, IEC acknowledged the fact that the June 14 run-off elections witnessed massive frauds.

"There was wide-scale fraud by security forces, governors and IEC employees," a commissioner for the IEC, Azizullah Bakhtyari, admitted. "Clearly, most of the fraud happened in coordination with IEC employees."

Bakhtyari hopes that the audit process will re-establish people's trust in the election process.

"The audit helped us recognize the employees responsible for the fraud that took place at the 1,028 polling sites," he said. "Clearly, we will take action against them for harming the public's trust in the electoral institution."

Meanwhile, the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) has announced that the commission will hold a public meeting on Tuesday to discuss the IEC's recent decisions.

"We are trying to issue our decision about the second round of the presidential election in the upcoming days and send it to the IEC," ECC spokesman Nadir Mohseni said at a press conference in Kabul.

As people wait for the presidential candidates to finalize the national unity government negotiations, they hope that the electoral tensions will end once and for all and stress that legal action should be taken against those responsible for the electoral fraud. (Tolonews)