Afghan Vote Audit Marred By Unwanted Delay

Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission is undergoing severe delays in auditing the outcome of the landmark Afghan presidential elections, spokesperson for the Election Commission Noor Mohammad Noor said on Monday.



The process to recount more than eight million votes began on Thursday July 17 and was briefly halted for a couple of hours on Sunday due to some differences between the representatives of the presidential candidates over the check-list. Noor said that they were trying their best to speed-up the process but much depended on administrative, logistical and trust issues.



 Independent Election Commission (IEC) planned that 100 auditing teams would recount at least one thousand ballot boxes a day to achieve the target of auditing more than 20,000 ballot boxed within four weeks. Noor, meanwhile, said today that they have just managed to expand the auditing teams to 50 a day. He added with the arrival of more observers, the number of teams would reach 100 in each of the two shifts a day in order to complete the task working around the clock after the holy month of Ramadan.



Noor said at the moment 666 candidate representatives, 338 Afghan and 322 international observers are monitoring the process.  He declared a little less than 50 percent of the ballot boxes - around 9,476 - had arrived in Kabul thanks to International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops who ensured their safe transportation from different provinces.



The transport of ballot boxes from the distant 34 provinces remains a daunting challenge for the Afghan and international forces. So far, only boxes from Kabul's neighboring provinces have been brought to the capital.



Neutral observers and candidate representatives are afraid if the commission continues to audit the ballots at the current speed, the process might take months instead of few weeks, which would ultimately complicate the already tense political situation in the country.



Afghanistan's IEC has so far managed to audit only 575 ballot boxes whereas according to its announced time table, it was due to have audited at least five thousand ballots so far.



www.aa.com.tr/en - Ankara