Dr. Ghani agrees UN proposal for the audit of 3.5 million votes

Dr. AShraf Ghani Ahmadzai, the leading candidate in runoff presidential election, has agreed with the UN mission proposal to audit votes of over 8000 polling stations.

The electoral team of Dr. Ghani announced its agreement on Friday and vowed a full cooperation for the implementation of the proposal and called on electoral bodies to support and implement the proposal in accordance with the electoral law and in the presence of national and international observers in a bid to prevent any doubt regarding the process.

Dr. Ghani also called on his rival Dr. Abdullah Abdullah to return to vote counting process, considering that their demand for the transparency of the votes has been met.

At a meeting convened by the President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, yesterday, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) presented its proposal for an additional audit which aims to strengthen the credibility of the country’s electoral process and acceptance of the results from the recent Presidential election run-off by both campaigns and all Afghans.

UNAMA following a statement said Friday, for weeks, both Presidential candidates have requested a full investigation of serious and credible allegations of fraud and have strongly urged measures that would separate fraudulent ballots from valid votes. UNAMA shares these concerns and supports an extensive and thorough investigation and audit.

At the request of the two Presidential candidates and the Afghan authorities, the United Nations has over the past days held numerous meetings with representatives of both Presidential campaigns to discuss measures to increase the integrity and credibility of the run-off, the statement added.

The UN proposal that includes five criteria that would create an audit that entails 8,050 polling stations (35 per cent of all polling stations) and 3.5 million ballots (44 per cent of all ballots cast).

All polling stations with 595+ votes (including repeating the audit of 599+ votes already conducted by the IEC), all female polling stations that were staffed by male workers, all polling centres where, although the number of female polling stations was less than or equal to that of male polling stations, the votes from female polling stations exceeded votes from male polling stations, all polling stations where votes received by either candidate is a multiple of fifty, starting from 100 votes, and all polling centres where polling stations were added for the run-off, are included in the audit criteria in the UN proposal.

It is estimated that such a robust nationwide audit, involving 34 provinces, would take up to 14 days.