MOSCOW, August 3 (RIA Novosti) - Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IEC) resumed Sunday an audit of votes from the runoff presidential election held in the country in June, Agence France Presse reported.
According to IEC spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor, the recounting process would begin without observers representing candidate Abdullah Abdullah.
"The commission waited yesterday and today, but we are half through the day and Dr. Abdullah's observers are not here …We have decided to continue the process without any further interruptions," Mohammad Noor was quoted as saying.
Earlier on Saturday, the audit hit a snag once again after Abdullah’s representatives said they would not show up at the election commission until negotiations with the United Nations and other parties involved are finalized.
The main issue hindering the recounting process is disqualification of fraudulent ballots.
Candidate Abdullah insists the entire box should be disqualified if some of the votes in it are found invalid, whereas the UN wants to discard individual votes.
Preliminary results for the Afghanistan elections were released on July 7 showing former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani had claimed victory garnering 56 percent of the votes. Presidential contender, Abdullah Abdullah, a Taliban resistance fighter, claimed there was fraud and called the results «a coup against the people’s votes."
During his visit to Kabul last month, US Secretary of State John Kerry brokered a deal paving the way for a full audit of votes. The process, however, has already been suspended several times.
