UN condemns yesterday’s clash and interruption to audit

20 Aug 2014

UN condemns yesterday’s clash and interruption to audit

KABUL - The United Nations expresses 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. 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.”

The UN welcomes the agreement to establish a joint-committee to investigate Tuesday evening’s incident. It urges 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.