TEFA’s Press Statement on Delays in disseminating the preliminary result of the 2019 Presidential Election
20 October 2019

KABUL| Transparent Election Foundation of Afghanistan as the most prominent election oversight body in Afghanistan who deployed exactly 5,200 trained, non-partisan, and professional field observers across the country to observe the 2019 presidential election and is still observing Afghan EMBs’ work proceedings on a daily basis, declares delays in announcing the preliminary result of the 2019 polls a serious concerns and defines it suspicious to the optimum.

TEFA’s observation findings clearly depict that IEC had articulated and planned its operations for over 9 million registered voters in the 2019 Presidential Election, but on account of several reasons which have already been openly disclosed through TEFA’s previous press statements, less than 2 million voters participated in the polls which apparently is a very poor figure for voters’ turnout.

Through professional, impartial observation, TEFA has found out that delays in announcing the preliminary result is a product of IEC’s managerial setbacks and political interventions in IEC’s operations.

Transparent Election Foundation of Afghanistan is concerned about the adverse spell-over effects of the ongoing conditions on the following matters:

1. The final result of the 2019 election is likely to be a technical disaster
2. There will be an extreme upsurge in mistrusts over the transparency of the process
3. Such operational delays will provide the room for presidential candidates to deny the results.
4. Citizens’ mistrust in the electoral process will intensify
5. This ongoing condition will in turn cause delays in other phases defined in the election calendar.

Transparent Election Foundation of Afghanistan calls on IEC to justify its work and provide documented reasons for this delay, must proceed with its operations in thorough conformance with the preset election calendar, and should prevent all possible suspicions from being aroused.