In the press conference held on Thursday, a spokesperson for IECC, Alireza Rohani, informed that the commission has recruited representatives for each and every polling centre for the first time.
With respect to complaints on regulations of elections and violations, the spokesperson quoted the figure of 311 complaints of violation that were registered during the campaigning period. The IECC spokesperson also clarified that out of these, 214 cases were resolved too.
Reminding candidates about electoral expenditures, the IECC recommended that candidates must report to the commission about all their campaign spendings.
Since campaign period came to an end on Wednesday night, the spokesperson warned that if “any form of campaign occurs during the silence period, it would be considered a violation.”
On the matter of press freedom and right to information, the spokesperson added that “Any form of prevention of access to information is considered violation and subject to prosecution; on this basis, no one has the right to limit the access of journalists to the information during the election process, except as provided in the law.”
There were many regulations with respect to voter freedom and voters in general that the IECC has reiterated for the elections. The following are the key reminders of what is considered a violation summarised from the press conference address today:
Any kind of change in the list of voters previously provided is a violation and subject to prosecution;
Threat and pressure against voters, commission employees and electoral observers are considered as an electoral violation and the guilty will be prosecuted;
Theft or destruction of ballot papers or sensitive materials of election;
The use of absentee ballots on behalf of their family members;
Buying and selling votes;
Transportation of weapons to polling centers is prohibited;
Closing the polling center before the time, except for having an excuse;
Taking photo of a ballot paper that violates the confidentiality of vote, is a violation;
Non-fingerprinting;
The spokesman for the Electoral Complaints Commission also said: “No government employee or security officer has the right to work for the benefit or loss of a candidate.”
Some candidates had could not follow the standard procedure and failed stick to the regulations. On Thursday therefore, the IECC also released an official list of those candidates that have no been eliminated from the main list of parliamentary candidates. The names of the eliminated candidates and areas from where they were contesting are as follows:
Rubina Walizai, Maidan Wardak
Abdulkarim Shafaq, Farah
Habibullah Ghuriani, Herat
Ahmad Shah Sadat Hussaini, Herat
Abdullah Zahid, Kunduz
Ghulam Nabi Saqi, Ghor
Samira Khairkhah, Balkh
The reasons for elimination could be because the candidates failed to resign from an official government position before a stipulated deadline, or if they were an Iranian national, or if the candidate is convicted of crime and/or is in prison, or is even prosecuted.
