Protesting candidates from eleven parliamentary constituencies on Wednesday accused the Afghan government of engineering the October election and urged for the creation of a special court for the electoral violations.

Failed parliamentary candidates and their supporters have set up tents in Kabul for the past seven days and claim that the government has interfered in the election affairs of their provinces.

They further say that the government has replaced their names with specific candidates though they had higher votes.

“Mr. President based on which regulation the votes of one candidate are invalidated in 21 polling stations. What type of election and transparency is this? I have the highest and the cleanest votes,” said Farhad Akbari, a protester candidate from Logar province while presenting some result sheets to the media.

“Those who won the election with clean votes were eliminated from the final list after decisions behind closed doors,” said Samiullah Qatra, another protester from Kunduz province.

“We don’t aim to create chaos or disturb the public opinion. We want the creation of a special court to decide in favor of the right person,” said Heela Mujtaba, a female protester from Paktika province.

Meanwhile, an official in Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission (IEC) told Ariana News that the final results of parliamentary elections were announced based on the decisions of the Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC).

“The electoral law has clarified the bodies which can investigate complaints of the candidates and voters. IEC has announced the election results after the decisions of the IECC,” said Abdul Aziz Ibrahimi, Deputy Spokesman of the IEC.

Afghanistan’s parliamentary election was held on October 2018 after a three-year delay but it was followed by widespread challenges. All commissioners of the electoral bodies were dismissed and referred to the Attorney General Office (AGO) for investigations over weak management and electoral violations.

So far, IEC has announced the final result of all 32 provinces except Kabul which is awaiting for the final decision of IECC.