The United Nations (UN) developed a 13-point procedure for the invalidation of votes in the overall audit of the disputed Afghan presidential elections is a non-negotiable deal, top U.S. diplomat in Afghanistan said on Thursday, urging both candidates to accept the ground rules for the audit.
Speaking to TOLOnews, U.S. Ambassador James Cunningham said that the UN election experts developed the criteria in aspects to international best practices.
The UN proposed a detailed procedure for detecting and invalidating fraudulent votes after representatives of the two candidates failed to agree on a procedure on their own.
The Afghan Independent Election Commission (IEC) adopted the UN proposal on Wednesday afternoon despite disagreement from Abdullah Abdullah’s camp.
A day earlier, members of Abdullah’s team lashed out at the UN for proposing a flawed procedure for the audit to the election body.
“The UN proposal doesn’t meet 100 percent of the concerns of either candidate, but it’s the best effort by the UN experts to create the final parts of the proposals necessary for the audit and then for the invalidation procedure to go forward,” Ambassador Cunningham said.
The audit process will resume on Saturday and as Cunningham stated, it would take four to five weeks to inspect nearly eight million votes.
A senior aide to Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, Daoud Sultanzoy, who represents Ghani-Ahmadzai in talks with Abdullah’s representatives and the IEC, said they have endorsed the UN proposal and are looking forward to the resumption of the audit process on Saturday.
Abdullah has not threatened to boycott the process yet, which will lead to another electoral impasse, but Cunningham said ‘no better deal could be achieved’.
“I can assure you that over a period of some 10 days or two weeks in very careful and detailed discussion with both candidates and their teams, the UN experts made every effort that they could to meet the concerns of both the candidates, consistent with international best practices,” expressed the U.S. ambassador. “We support the proposal that has been made. We support the audit going forward on that basis and we urge both the candidates to do so also.”
He asked the IEC to accelerate the auditing process, eyeing for auditing 1,000 boxes a day. There are 23,000 ballot boxes total, each represent a polling station.
“This is a very unique kind of experience. No election has been audited like this before with this kind of scope. We hope that it would possible to conclude it in the next four or five weeks.”
James Cunningham called on both candidates – who are out of the country for Eid holidays – to begin talks over the brokered agreement by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, in which both candidates agreed to form a government of national unity.
“The political agreement is a framework that has set out general principles, but it doesn’t resolve or address many of the details that will actually be needed to form what is called a national unity government,” he said. “So we believe those discussions need to begin soon so important details like that can be elaborated.”
He added that one thing that is clear in the deal is that the political system would remain presidential and the president would have the authority over the government. Establishing a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) post for the losing candidate, would become a Prime Ministerial post if endorsed by a Loya Jirga in two years.
As a lesson learned from the elections, the U.S. ambassador concluded that the Afghan electoral system and bodies need reforms before the next elections.