Presidential election held transparently: Lawmakers

KABUL or lower house members on Monday said the presidential election was held transparently, asking election commissions to investigate rigging and violations allegations in the process.

Kamal Nasar Osoli, a lawmaker from southeastern Khost province, told today’s Wolesi Jirga session that people’s turnout was low on the Election Day, but the process had been transparent.

He asked presidential candidates to accept the election results and congratulate the winner and support him.

Ghulam Faroq Majroh, a lawmaker from western Herat province, termed people’s turnout on the Election Day as the lowest and said, “There were problems in the election process, but it was better than the past polls.”

About fraud allegations during the election, he asked the election omissions to separate valid votes from invalid ones and keep their independency during their work.

Ghulam Hussain Naseri, a lawmaker from capital Kabul, said losing candidates should accept their defeat and rescue the country from plunging into a crisis.

“If the election commissions fail to ensure transparency and fail to separate genuine votes from fraudulent ones, it would worsen the situation”, Majroh warned.

Belqis Roshan, a lawmaker from western Farah province, said that one of the reasons behind the low turnout was ‘warlords’ and ‘traitors’ among the candidates.

A number of other candidates expressed similar views.

Mir Rahman Rahmani, Wolesi Jirga speaker, said that the election was nationwide and people voted for electing their future president despite security threats.

He asked the election commissions to ensure transparency in the vote count process and announce clean results.

“Any violations and electoral crimes can cause dangerous consequences and create political crisis,” he added.

Rahmani said the Wolesi Jirga would be closely monitoring the election commissions’ work and hoped the election results would convince the people.

The Independent Election Commission (IEC) says more than two million votes were cast at 3,736 polling centres in 29 provinces of the country on September 28.

The presidential ballot featured 13 candidates including President Ghani and CEO Abdullah.

mds/ma