Afghanistan’s election commission on Saturday once again suspended the auditing process of 8.1 million votes cast in the presidential run-off poll, after the two candidates failed to agree on the procedure for invalidating fraudulent votes.
“The Independent Election Commission (IEC) has decided to suspend temporarily the vote audit until the fourth day of Eid, and we hope it is enough time for the candidates to sort out their differences,” the IEC chairman Ahmad Yusuf Nuristani told a press conference on Saturday.The Muslim Eid festival expected to begin on Monday or Tuesday marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.
“The votes audit goes very slowly, the representatives of the candidates have walked out of the auditing process for the third time in the past ten days over differences of opinion,” Nuristani said.The audit was briefly suspended a week ago by a dispute over vote count records deemed void by one candidate’s team as they lacked a full name and signature.
Saturday’s suspension came shortly after the United Nations said that both candidates had indicated they support a UN proposal with specific criteria for invalidating fraudulent ballots in the audit process.The procedure for dealing with fraud is the primary point of contention between the two sides, but they also disagree on other technical aspects of the process.
Meanwhile US President Barack Obama called both candidates on Friday night asking them to endorse their previous agreement over the outcome of the election audit and the formation of a national unity Government.