Announcement of the Reform and Partnership Team Led by Dr. Abdullah Abdullah
After evaluating the electoral events of June 14, 2014 the Observation Committee of the Reform and Partnership Team has prepared a list of some of the questionable instances in relation to the presidential election which we here share with our countrymen:
1 - - At the end of the Election Day when counting of the vote had not yet finished, the Chairman of the Election Commission announced that the number of those participating in the election of June 14 came to seven million. This hurried announcement was a surprise to the national and international observers. And considering the low turnout of that day compared to the April 5 Election Day, the question was ‘what Nurestani’s motives were for announcing this figure of seven million?’ The discussion was still going on when during the announcement of the preliminary result of the second round the Commission presented the figure of over eight million persons. Where does this difference of one million votes in the preliminary result come from and how?
2 - - On the Election Day, the Kabul Police caught red-handed Ziaul Haq Amarkhail, Chief of the Election Commission Secretariat during transport of ballot sheets over and beyond the procedure of the Election Commission - - some reports say that he had carried out this activity several times and was finally prevented by Kabul Police.
3 - - Inspections in some provinces of the country show a massive difference between Dr. Ghani’s votes in the first round of the election and the second round. Based on these inspections, the difference in Dr. Ghani’s votes in eleven non-secure provinces, where holding an election may have even been inappropriate - - in the first round were 609,275 and in the second round were 2,135,745 votes - - they show an unbelievable increase of 350%!
4 - - These inspections also show that in 23 secure provinces the level of participation in the first round was 55.4%, and in the second round it was 56.8%, while in the first round the level of participation in the eleven provinces was 54.2% and in the second round 98.7%!
5 - - In provinces of Paktia, Khost, Paktika and Konar, the level of participation of registered voters respectively was 136% (334,405 ballots), 156% (400,160 ballots), 209% (404,562 ballots), and 105% (212,218 ballots) higher than the total of the registered voters.
6 - - The Election Commission officially gave the total of the polling stations for the second round as 23,136. But after the Election Day of June 14, the Commission’s report on this is: Open polling stations 22,828 which the preliminary results include, closed polling stations 878, invalidated polling stations 50. All of these come to a total of 23,756. This shows a difference of 928 polling stations from the original figure.
7 - - The total of ballots in favor of Dr. Ghani announced by the Commission, in the first round was 2,084,547, and in the second round it was 4,485,888, which is a difference of 2,401,341 ballots. This figure shows an unreasonable and inconceivable increase of 115%, or almost twice as many votes as the first round.
8 - - While the total of ballots in favor of Dr. Abdullah in the first round was 2,972,141, and in the second round it was 3,461,639. This shows a normal and reasonable increase of 16%.
The points mentioned above are just a small part of the questionable corners and suspicious instances in relation to the work of the Election Commission identified by the Observation Committee of the Reform and Partnership Team. Other cases will be posted in future announcements.