Afghan Election Commission Fires Half Its Staff Over Fraud

5,338 Workers Fired Mostly Ran Polling Centers

The Independent Election Commission (IEC) in Afghanistan has announced that they are going to add 3,500 new polling stations for the June 14 runoff vote, bringing the total to 23,312.

They’re going to have a hard time manning that many stations, however, as they also revealed that they have fired 5,338 campaigner workers, most of them district coordinators, for election fraud.

Millions of fraudulent votes were cast in the first round of voting, and the IEC says that in addition to their own staff they are urging the Interior Ministry to fire several police chiefs who were involved.

The firings suggest the IEC is serious about reforming for the runoff this time around. During the 2009 vote, with its similarly enormous levels of fraud, they declined to make any reforms at all before the runoff, leading Abdullah Abdullah to withdraw entirely.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.