Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Afghanistan: UN condemns clash between Abdullah’s observers and election workers

The United Nations has expressed concern about yesterday’s clash between supporters of Dr. Abdullah Abdullah’s campaign team and workers from the Independent Election Commission (IEC) that left several people hurt at the audit centre compound in Kabul.
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said Wednesday that this is not the first case in which representatives of the campaign teams have engaged in heated exchanges culminating in violence.
“The UN deplores the violence that took place,” said the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and head of UNAMA, Ján Kubiš. “All parties – campaign teams, IEC, UN and observers – engaged in this important process must abide by relevant Codes of Conduct, and conduct themselves with professionalism and with high standards worthy of the millions of Afghans who cast their vote in the election. They must treat each other with respect.
Supervisors of the respective groups are responsible for guiding them and for controlling the situation, not to let disputes deteriorate in to confrontation.”
A statement released by UNAMA said, the UN welcomes the agreement to establish a joint-committee to investigate Tuesday evening’s incident.
The UN mission urged that steps be taken to prevent any such incidents in the future and to ensure that the audit process proceeds quickly under the conditions of mutual respect, dignity and safety.
More than 12,000 of the 22,828 ballot boxes have to date been audited under the UN-supervised process, with national partners backed by more than 150 UN experts.
At least four election workers were reportedly injured after observers of Dr. Abdullah Abdullah stabbed the election workers on Tuesday evening.
The incident took place around 5:30 pm local time after observers of Dr. Abdullah opposed with shifting of a ballot box from IEC store to recount centre.

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