ecc

Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission held a press conference to announce partial results of its first tally of votes coming in from the country's 34 provinces. Here are our notes from the conference.

Counting

In today's local news: the ECC is sorting through nearly 3,000 complaints; more intra-candidate troubles in Baghlan; Herat candidates declare themselves winners; while others differ on poll's transparency; UN and Russian Embassy praise electoral process. 

KABUL, Sept 20 - The Independent Election Commission (IEC) said today, Monday, it had 73 percent of sensitive materials, including ballot boxes, returned to IEC offices.
Four provinces--Helmand, Jowzjan, Kapisa and Kabul--have returned all materials while other, more remote, provinces such as Badakshan, Ghor and Dai Kundi have had up to half of materials returned. Provincial IEC offices are in turn forwarding results forms to the National Tally Center at IEC headquarters in Kabul.

In today's local news: counting continues amid claims of fraud; alleged ballot-stuffers arrested in Logar; bodies of kidnapped IEC workers found; Kabul candidate accused of interfering in count;