Abdullah’s team claims widespread rigging

KABUL (Pajhwok): Frontrunner Dr. Abdullah Abdullah’s team on Monday said electoral fraud had been committed at various stages of the April 5 elections and the fate of more than 900,000 votes remained unclear.

They produced some documents claiming widespread fraud during the first round of the presidential elections on April 5.

The documents show irregularities have been committed in the establishment of electoral sites, the vote tallying process at the Independent Election Commission (IEC)’s tally centre has been interfered with and results manipulated in some cases in favour of a specific presidential candidate.

The documents show result sheets given to Abdullah’s team were different from those announced by the Independent Election Commission (IEC).

Abdul Sattar Murad, deputy head of Dr. Abdullah’s electoral team, said the IEC was yet to decide the fate of more than 900,000 votes.

Of the 900,000 suspicious votes, he said, more than 500,000 had been cast for Dr. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai and the remaining 400,000 votes had been missing and had not been recorded by the IEC.

He asked the two electoral bodies to respect the public mandate and discharge their responsibilities in a proper and transparent manner.

However, IEC denied any fraud had taken place in the vote tallying process, saying the process had been uninterrupted so far.

IEC spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor told Pajhwok Afghan News they would take action if produced with authentic evidence.

mrh/ma

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