The Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Sunday warned that the closure of its offices in some provinces will prevent the upcoming parliamentary elections to be held upon the scheduled time.

Recently, the supporters of the Grand National Coalition of Afghanistan (GNCA) have closed the IEC offices in Balkh, Herat and Kandahar provinces, asking the election commission to address their demands regarding the elections.

However, the IEC urges the government, particularly, the security institutions to ensure the security of its staff and offices.

“Those who are closing the commission’s offices, in fact, they want to delay the elections,” said Head of IEC Abdulbadi Sayad. “They will be responsible because they are creating obstacles to this process.”

However, the political parties insist that they will continue to protest against the election commission.

“The political parties are not in confrontation with the government but we want to have a transparent election, and now we want to continue our move,” said Humayoun Jareer, a member of Hezb-e-Islami.

The political parties, meanwhile, accuse the government of engineering the elections.

“You may know, the political parties are stressing on a plan that could guarantee the transparency of the election process. The biometric process could ensure transparency in this process,” said Noor Rahman Akhlaqi, a senior member of the Jamiat-e-Islami party.

Following the closure of IEC offices in some provinces, the Interior Ministry warned that it will use its force if needed to maintain the security of the election process.

“Today, we have been able to open the IEC office in Herat province and soon we are going to open the IEC offices in Kandahar and Balkh provinces,” said the Interior Ministry Deputy Spokesman Nasrat Rahimi.

This comes as earlier, the IEC office was closed by some supporters of the disqualified candidates in the capital Kabul which was reopened by the security forces after about two weeks.