The Independent Election Commission (IEC) says solving election crisis in Ghazni province requires serious management, and that the commission is in talks with local and foreign consultants to find a lasting solution for the issue.

Earlier, the IEC said it has reached to the decision to divide Ghazni into three separate electoral constituencies for the upcoming parliamentary and district council elections. However, the commission yet to begin the voter and candidate registration process in the province.

“We accept that we have been late and the commission is also concerned that the timetable should have been implemented on time but in order to accurately manage [the elections in Ghazni], further discussions are required,” said Sayed Hafiz Hashimi, a member of the IEC.

The plan of holding zone-based elections in Ghazni has already followed strong criticism of some MPs and officials as they describing the move as “discriminatory” and “illegal”.

“The leadership of the election commission should seriously pay heed to this issue and avoid wasting time,” said Noor Mohammad Noor, a former member of the IEC.

In addition, the Independent Election Complaints Commission (IECC) said that it has registered 600 complaints in last four days. 

“Currently, all of the complaints are being gathered and the provincial employees are working on the complaints which were more than 600 yesterday mainly from Kabul,” said Abdul Basir Fayaz, a member of the IECC.

After finalizing the list of complaints, IECC is expected to begin assessing the complaints.

This comes as the Presidential Palace has referred the responsibility of appointing the IECC provincial commissioners to the Independent Administrative Reform and Civil Service Commission of Afghanistan (IARCSC), and not responded to the received list of IECC in this regard.

“Their [IECC] list had a few issues; it was prepared through Human Rights Commission and it only included the name of the individuals while nothing was mentioned regarding the background and gender of the individuals,” said Shah Hussain Murtazawi, Deputy Spokesman of the President’s office