The IEC

By James Bays in Asia on November 2nd, 2009
Photo by AFP

Under the Afghan constitution and electoral law, the responsibility for organisation of elections is given to the Independent Election Commission (IEC).

The IEC's chairman - a post that is appointed by the country's president - Professor Azizullah Ludin has been repeatedly criticised by Dr Abdullah, who has claimed he is not a neutral figure.

Now Abdullah has pulled out of the second round. I sat down with Professor Ludin and asked him what happens next.

This is a transcript of part of our interview:

JB: Are we still going to have an election on November 7th?

By James Bays in Asia on October 19th, 2009

Now there’s not just division between the candidates, a dispute has broken out between the two election commissions charged with supervising the process.

The Election Complaints Commission, which has been investigating complains for eight weeks, and carried out a partial recount, is about to handover its findings to the Independent Election Commission, the body that organised the election. The ECC will simultaneously publish its findings on its website (at 17:00 Afghan time, 12:30GMT) , because it has no faith in the IEC to properly announce and implement its findings. I am told these rulings will be titled “orders” – the ECC wants to make it quite clear that it believes the IEC has no right to challenge them.

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