Vote audit to end in few days: IEC

KABUL) on Saturday said the vote audit process would be completed over the next few days and final result would be announced soon.

IEC spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor told reporters in Kabul the election’s legitimacy was guaranteed by its technical process and the new president would be elected by technically monitoring votes.

Noor assured the audit process would not be delayed for weeks or months anymore. He added the IEC would soon share its new schedule with the government, presidential candidates, the United Nations (UN) and the people to firm up the date for final results and other tasks of the commission.

President Hamid Karzai has ruled out any extension in the new president’s inauguration, scheduled for Sept. 2.

But UN’s top diplomat in Kabul Jan Kubis on Friday said that the vote audit process could not be completed by Sept. 2, saying ten more days were required to complete the process.

Both the presidential candidates have agreed to form a national unity government, but discussions about creating the chief executive post are still underway.

Representatives of both the presidential candidates have not been appearing to oversee the vote audit over the past four days.

Meanwhile, the IEC said the audit process depended on international election observers and UN specialists.

The IEC asked the UN to increase the number of election observers to further accelerate the audit process.

Of the 23,000 ballot boxes, 18,000 have so far been scrutinised, the IEC said. Noor said the remaining ballot boxes would be audited over the next few days and the IEC was trying to complete the process soon.

mds/ma

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