Serious fraud could affect outcome in polls: watchdog

KABUL (Pajhwok): The Independent Electoral Complaints Commission on Sunday said it had recorded a total of 870 incidents of fraud classed as “Priority A”, complaints considered serious enough to affect the outcome of the April 5 elections.

IECC spokesman Nadir Muhseni told reporters in Kabul they had registered 3,274 complaints so far from across the country and 1,892 of them had documents in support.

He said might expand the timeframe to review the high number of complaints accurately in provinces.

Cases of fraud classed as “Priority-A complaints, higher than the 815 incidents recorded in 2009, included 338 against presidential runners, 537 against provincial council contenders and 1,017 against employees of the Independent Election Commission (IEC).  

Muhseni said common people and observers could closely monitor the process of assessing complaints in all the provinces. He said the IECC was committed to ensuring transparency and asked international observers to avoid exceeding their mandate.

He said the watchdog had called on the IEC to share lists of quarantined and suspicious ballot boxes and ballots invalidated.

Dozens of photos and video clips are released on social media sites, showing instances of widespread fraud in some polling stations.

The three front runners have all complained of fraud. A candidate must secure more than 50 percent of valid ballots to win. Failing that, the top two candidates go into a run-off.

Partial results from a sample of ballots were announced on Sunday, after delayed for a day, showing presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah in a tight race with his closest rival Dr. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai.

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