The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) announced that they have accepted specific demands of presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah with regard to the audit process and is said to rejoin the procedure on Monday.
In the press statement released by UNAMA on Sunday states that Abdullah and UNAMA met Saturday to discuss the UN proposal of the audit criteria. The two parties were able to come to an agreement with the adoption of certain demands of Abdullah.
The statement reads the following were agreed upon:
1. The agreement on items 12 and 16 of the audit checklist is reconfirmed and will be fully implemented during the audit process.
2. The processes of adjudication on the findings of the audit will not being before the end of the week, after technical preparations and data entry of information collected from the audit is undertaken.
Campaign agents and observers will be provided access to these preparatory steps…in case new issues that require attention will arise during the course of conducting the audit, the UN will consider whether the relevant procedures and criteria require refinement and updating. The senior UN international elections expert, Jeff Fischer, who directly advises the Board of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) on international best practices as it makes decisions to validate, invalidate or recount ballots cast in the runoff has the discretion to apply special scrutiny to any boxes he deems warranted.
3. The UN proposal will not allow ballots from ‘ghost’ polling centers and stations to enter the electoral system.
4. In cases that ballot boxes are lost, missing, damaged or destroyed an investigation of all relevant information will be conducted including on the basis, but not limited to IEC documents. If these investigations reveal no valid proof that a missing ballot box served as an active polling station it will be excluded.
5. International experts will be fully involved in the entire audit process and in addition to offering advice will take part in the adjudication process.
In reaction to the news, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan James Cunningham welcomes the news and applauds the candidates’ commitment to the process and hopes that this agreement will accelerate the auditing process.
Another senior U.S. official said that the political framework talks should resume as soon as possible and emphasizes that the purpose of the audit is to detect large-scale electoral fraud, not to identify small mistakes.
The official also added that no one wants a temporary government.
The UN has been informed that Abdullah’s team will attend the Audit Technical Committee meeting held Sunday evening. The team is also said to be present during the comprehensive audit process beginning Monday.