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| Afghanistan |
| Abdullah Begins UN-Mediated Talks With IEC |
| 2014-06-25 |
| [Tolo News] A representative of presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah's campaign team on Tuesday confirmed that negotiations had begun with Independent Election Commission (IEC) officials following the resignation of Secretariat Chief Zia-ul-Haq Amarkhail amid accusations of fraud. The talks are being mediated by the United Nations. The departure of Amarkhail was a condition the Abdullah team had set for rejoining the election process after they had announced their decision to boycott the election commission, which they accused of engineering large-scale fraud in cahoots with President Hamid Karzai. Following his televised resignation announcement on Monday afternoon, Abdullah held his own press conference in which he said the door had been opened to talks with election officials. Syed Fazel Aq Sancharaki, a member of Abdullah's team, said that negotiations with nine IEC commissioners and the UN's special representative to Afghanistan, Yan Kubis, began Monday night. He said although nothing was settled, all the parties involved wanted to resolve the impasse currently facing the election process. According to Sancharaki, Abdullah's demands before he is willing to return to normal relations with the IEC are that the cases of fraud he is most concerned with are fully investigated and the turnout numbers of the runoff be clarified. Abdullah has claimed up to two million ballots cast in the runoff could be invalid and maintained that the IEC's estimate that seven million Afghans participated is far higher than the true number. "...our stance entering into negotiations is quite clear," Sancharaki said on Tuesday. Meanwhile, a member of Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai's campaign team, Tahir Zaheer, said that no negotiations would change the result of the runoff. "Negotiations are a good thing, but no talks will change the outcome of the election," Zaheer said. "The people of Afghanistan made their decision on June 14." Although the vote counting process is not yet completed, and audits for fraud still have to be done, many have claimed Ghani to be significantly farther ahead than his opponent. If that is the case, it would be a dramatic turn around from the first round, which concluded with Abdullah holding 45 percent of votes and Ghani only 31.6 percent. Ghani supporters have attributed the potential spike in support to higher turnout in friendly areas of the country as well as the candidate field shrinking from eight to two. Political commentators and activists responded positively to the news of negotiations between Abdullah and the election commission on Tuesday. Afghanistan Democracy Watch head Zekirya Barakzai said the Afghan public was getting wary of the tensions between the two camps and resulting deadlock in the process. "People are now tired of the tensions, they want a consensus to be made," Barakzai said. "Any institution that intends to mediate this issue could be effective if the two candidates agree on it." On Monday, the Attorney General's office said that President Hamid Karzai has assigned a delegation to help resolve the election disputes and avoid a political crisis. However, it is unclear exactly the nature of the delegation's role will be, and whether or not it is a participant in the negotiations that began Monday night. |
| Posted by:Fred |