March 29, 2024 10:08 (IST)
Follow us:
facebook-white sharing button
twitter-white sharing button
instagram-white sharing button
youtube-white sharing button
PM Modi has mastered art of manipulating democracy, hurting Constitution: Mallikarjun Kharge | Mafia-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari dies of cardiac arrest at 63 | NIA arrests key conspirator in Bengaluru cafe blast case | Actor Govinda returns to politics after 14 years of 'vanvas', joins Eknath Shinde camp | 'To browbeat and bully others is vintage Congress culture': PM posts after 600 lawyers write to CJI
Improvements in Afghan audit will enhance integrity -UN

Improvements in Afghan audit will enhance integrity -UN

India Blooms News Service | | 18 Aug 2014, 12:15 pm
New York, Aug 18 (IBNS) The United Nations in Afghanistan has welcomed several refinements made this week to that country's ongoing audit over the results of the presidential run-off poll, saying the improvements will strengthen the “integrity of the process”.

In a statement from Kabul on Sunday, Ján Kubiš, head of UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), said that all parties had a responsibility to ensure the delivery of credible results of the roughly eight million ballots.

"The objective of the unprecedented audit agreed to by [the two Presidential candidates] Dr. Abdullah Abdullah and Dr. Ashraf Ghani is to identify and excise large-scale fraud from the millions of valid votes," said  Kubiš.

During the last week several refinements were discussed in the Audit Management committee co-chaired by the Independent Election Commission (IEC) and UN with the participation of the two campaigns and international observers.

"As we continue to learn every day by carrying out the audit, the IEC, the UN and the two campaign teams are working to tighten the procedures and criteria so that the demand of the Afghan people to separate fraudulent ballots from valid votes can be achieved."

The most significant of these issues was the new special scrutiny procedure, which commenced on 16 August. It was required by the 12 July Agreement reached between Dr. Abdullah and Dr. Ghani, which allowed agents from their campaigns to request special scrutiny on ballot boxes that register certain results.

"Operationalising the special scrutiny provision is important to promoting broad acceptance of the result of the audit," said Kubiš.

Other updates include a process on how to identify improbable sequences of voter ID cards in voter logs, and further clarifications on what constitutes a ballot marked according to procedure.

"Now both candidates can have the confidence that the polling stations about which they had the greatest concerns will not just be audited but also receive full recounts under the close monitoring of the most experienced IEC staff, UN experts and observers."

The issues were raised by the electoral campaigns based on their experiences with the audit, which is expected to have completed 10,000 boxes by Sunday.

Following extensive deliberations on each issue, UN recommendations on technical matters and other issues were put forward with the aim to contribute to the audit overall objective of capturing and cleaning large-scale fraud.

The Independent Election Commission (IEC) of Afghanistan continued with the audit process on the results from the country’s Presidential election run-off held on 14 June 2014. Photo: UNAMA/Fardin Waezi

Support Our Journalism

We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism

IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.

Support objective journalism for a small contribution.