IEC Press Conference Sept 30 Notes

These are our notes from today’s press conference at the Independent Election Commission.

The IEC chairperson Fazl Ahmad Manawi spoke at a press conference today at the IEC headquarters. At the conference he announced partial results for Kabul, Balkh, and Badakhshan provinces. He also said that the results for other 28 provinces have been processed and would be announced soon.

The IEC chief said that the IEC leadership and commissioners are closely checking the suspicious polling centers from across the country. As a result the IEC has annulled the votes of 39 polling centers and the ballot boxes of 38 other polling centers have been sent for recount. Moreover, votes of a candidate in some particular stations of a province have been annulled. 

In response to a question about the parliament having announced that it would investigate the conduct of the elections Mr. Manawi said that all government institutions, civil society organizations and including the parliament are welcome to see our work in progress. But he said it is the legal and constitutional jurisdiction of the IEC to conduct and observe the electoral process. Moreover, he said that we view the parliamentarians as one of the stakeholders in this election.

Mr. Manawi also announced the following:

The IEC has annulled the votes of the following polling centers and stations due to different kinds of irregularities. Some of the centers had used more than 600 ballot papers, or the fact sheets did not have the signatures of the electoral observers, or the result sheet did not match the list of voters.

· Votes from 8 centers with particular stations in Paktika province

· All votes in a station from a particular center in Balkh

· Votes from one center with all its stations in Nuristan

· Votes from one center with all its stations from Farah

· Votes from 5 centers with all its stations in Faryab

· Votes from two centers with all its stations in Maidan Wardak province

· Votes from one centers with all its stations in Baghlan

· Votes from one center with all its stations in Badghis

· All votes from a particular stations in Kunar

· Votes from 3 centers in Herat

· Votes of the candidate number 15 from Farah province in particular stations have been annulled due to apparent fraud.