KABUL - The Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan (IEC) on Thursday said that it counted both biometric and non-biometric votes while identifying the winners and losers of the October 20 parliamentary elections.
But, electoral monitoring organizations reported strong confusion in the vote counting process by the election management body of the country.
“Statistics and the reports which we have received from the provinces indicate that in some provinces, biometric was the base and in some provinces voter lists was the base while in some provinces contents inside the ballot boxes were the base and there was not a specific standard for recounting of the votes and there was multiplicity in the recounting of votes in the provinces,” said Mohammad Omid Nawrozi, member of Transparent Election Foundation of Afghanistan.
“Our concern is that this process moves forward very slowly and it is against the principles defined by the commission itself,” said Assadullah Sadati, member of the political committee of political parties.
Meanwhile, political parties said that transparency was not considered while announcing the preliminary election results.
So far, the IEC has announced the preliminary results of 13 provinces.
“Voters list was the base, anyone who participated in the voter registration process whether their votes were biometric or without biometric, but their names were present on the list, their votes have been counted,” said Sayed Zabiullah Sadat, deputy spokesman for IEC.
The political parties emphasized that the results of votes in localities and provinces where biometric and non-biometric votes were blended will not be acceptable.
According to IEC, at least three million votes were casted through proper biometric identification devices.
But watchdogs have accused the IEC of not providing details on the biometric and non-biometric votes. (Tolo news)