Releasing Afghan legislative elections' results again delayed

Releasing final certified results of the landmark Afghan parliamentary polls would take more days as the authorities have yet to clear complaints in all the provinces, Chairman Election Complaint Commission (ECC) said Sunday.

"Our goal was to clear the remaining provinces by Tuesday on Nov. 1, but it looks likely that time may slip by a couple of days and we want to see the results for all the provinces until a little bit in a week," Grant Kippen told journalists.

Certified results of 19 out of the country's 34 provinces have been released.

"At this time 19 provinces have been cleared by the ECC for final certification by the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB). All the complaints have been investigated and adjudicated," the official noted.

It is the second time that the final results of the country's first parliamentary elections, held on September 18 has been postponed.

Earlier, it was supposed to be announced on Oct. 22, but put off by eight days and the JEMB officials announced to release the final results by the end of the month.

Citing receiving large complaints from losing candidates for delaying the elections' result, Kippen said that ECC had received a large volume of complaints which their investigations requires enough time.

"As of yesterday, the ECC has received approximately 5,400 complaints and the number of decisions has been rendered is over 3, 000," he emphasized.

Hundreds and even thousands of some 6,000 candidates for 249- seat Wolesi Jirga or National Assembly have accused the JEMB authorities of involvement in fraud and irregularities in the elections and demanding recounting of the votes.

However, Richard Atwood the Chief of Operation at JEMB has confirmed irregularities in the polls but ruled out the possibility of recounting by saying the fraud was not too much to undermine the integrity of the elections.

Source: Xinhua