Afghanistan- IEC Rejects UN Proposal for Upcoming Elections

(MENAFN- Daily Outlook Afghanistan) KABUL - Afghanistan's IEC on Mondayrejected the UN proposal of delaying the provincial councils and Ghazniparliamentary elections.
UN insists on holding the timelypresidential elections.
According to a tweet, TadamichiYamamoto, UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Afghanistan, saidthat 'Critically important that credible Afghanistan Presidential electionstake place on time this year.
He further added that 'The UN'stechnical advice is that with only 4 months remaining to 28 Sept PresidentialElection day there is a need for realism and urgent focus among all actors inthe Afghan election process.
However, Mr. Yamamoto stressed theindependence of IEC regarding making decisions about the elections.
'The IEC decides on how manyelections to hold. The UN provides technical guidance to it and respects itsdecisions, 'said Mr. Yamamoto.
In addition, onn May 12, Alice Wells, the U.S. PrincipalDeputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs visitedKabul where she met with the IEC officials to discuss the ongoing preparationsfor the upcoming presidential elections in Afghanistan.
The U.S. top diplomat recommendedIEC officials to focus on the presidential elections on September 28. Inaddition, she urged electoral bodies to postpone the other two elections.
However, the IEC Chief Hawa AlamNuristani has said that the provincial council elections should be held asscheduled in order to legitimatize the presidential election.
'In order to ensure overall,transparent, and legal presidential elections, there is a need to hold theprovincial council elections as well, said Ms. Nuristani.
At the same time, some presidentialcandidates insist that IEC has not the capacity of holding three elections atthe same time.
The elections watch institutions,knows the suggestion made by U.S. Deputy of Foreign Affairs Ministry as anintervention in the work of IEC.
Yousuf Rashid, CEO of the Free andFair Election Forum of Afghanistan, said, ' the suggestion could be proposed byan expert; proposed by a political official, however, has a different message.
This comes as IEC has assured tohold all the three elections concurrently on September 28. (ATN)

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