Hold 2nd round vote or we will close WJ gates: Ausoli, Yasini

KABUL speaker election on Saturday rejected the voting result and warned if a second round was not conducted, they would close the lower house gates

On Thursday, Mir Rahman Rahmani, a lawmaker from Parwan province, Mirwais Yasini, a lawmaker from Nangarhar province, Kamal Naser Ausoli from Khost and Omar Nasir from Herat contested the speaker election.

However, none received enough votes to become a winner and the voting went to a second round which was deferred to Saturday (today).

Rahmani and Ausoli who received the highest numbers of votes on Thursday went to the second round of voting.

Atta Mohammad Dehqanpor, temporary Wolesi Jirga speaker, today said there were 247 lawmakers present in the house and each candidate was required to collect 124 votes to win the seat.

Based on the results announced after the voting, Rahmani received 123 votes — one vote short of the threshold and Ausoli 55 votes.

Fifty-three votes were declared invalid and 13 were empty. As all votes were 244, however Dehqanpor declared 247 lawmakers were present.

Later Kamal Naser Ausoli and Mirwais Yasini rejected the result while speaking to media persons at the Parliament hall and added they would keep protesting in this regard.

After a few hours of heated debate with the mentioned lawmakers, Dehqanpor announced Mir Rahman Rahmani as winner of the speaker post, triggering an uproar in the hall.

Mirwais Yasini said Ausoli complained about the empty papers but no one paid attention to him.

He added some lawmakers took the ballot papers to bathrooms and did not cast them. He said he had a video and other evidence in this regard.

He said in ballot papers singed by lawmakers were 247, but after counting the votes, three votes were missing.

He said, “Stolen votes were counted as invalid, if I say the truth, lawmakers would be sadden, it is not acceptable, we are going to the second round tomorrow otherwise we will close the Wolesi Jirga gates.”

 “I witnessed different types of corruption and it was for the first time that public mandate in the Wolesi Jirga is stolen by a group of thieves,” Ausoli further added.

He said one vote was sold for $10,000 and today r $ 3 million distributed among the lawmakers.

Ausoli said, “I accept I received 55 votes and Rahmani 123 votes but still he needs one more vote, thus the election goes to a second round as the current result is not acceptable to us.”

pk/ma

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