Vote Audit Process Suspended For Fourth Time

The process of audit of all votes cast in election runoff has been once again suspended following disagreements on audit procedure and invalidation of ballots.

The process was stopped for the third time before Eid festival and was about to resume today (Saturday) but it still failed to begin.

The UN special representative in Afghanistan, Jan Kubis, said Saturday that the process didn’t resume after Abdullah Abdullah’s team requested for delay unless the candidates reach agreement on audit procedure and invalidation of ballots.

“We wanted to respect Abdullah Abdullah’s request and we will have negotiations with him during the day,” Kubis said.

The election commission chief, Ahmad Yousuf Nuristani, stated the UN accepted the demand because of Afghanistan’s national interest and the process was postponed until next 24 hours.

Nuristani stressed the process will definitely start by Sunday and there would be no excuse for postponement.

Earlier, the election commission had stated the audit process would be completed in three weeks, however, two weeks have gone but the process is yet to take part.