{"id":11176,"date":"2018-08-11T18:26:54","date_gmt":"2018-08-11T18:26:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=11176"},"modified":"2018-08-11T18:26:54","modified_gmt":"2018-08-11T18:26:54","slug":"afghanistan-electoral-body-bars-35-candidates-from-october-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=11176","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan: Electoral body bars 35 candidates from October vote"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Afghanistan’s top electoral body has barred dozens of candidates from running in the upcoming parliamentary elections, officials said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) issued a statement on Saturday with the names of the 35 disqualified candidates – including serving MPs – after it said they were found to have direct links with illegal armed groups.<\/p>\n

Most of those barred have already lodged appeals against the move.<\/p>\n

Officials at the IECC said the final list was the result of a month-long probe launched after its office received complaints against hundreds of candidates from voters in 34 provinces.<\/p>\n

Some candidates were alleged to have been involved in cases of murder, rape and extortion.<\/p>\n

“We disqualified the candidates because we want to clean the process and finally hold free and fair elections,” said Alirez Rohani, the spokesman of IECC.<\/span><\/p>\n

Already much delayed, the vote in October comes amid increasing attacks by Taliban<\/a> and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL<\/a>, also known as ISIS) fighters, who have threatened to target the electoral process.<\/p>\n

Diplomats tracking the upcoming elections said they backed the IECC to ensure transparency and accuracy.<\/p>\n

But most of the disqualified candidates were planning to launch a nationwide protest<\/a> against the IECC.<\/p>\n

“The IECC did not even provide the opportunity to the disqualified candidates to defend themselves,” said Fawzia Kofi, a legislator from Badakhshan province on the list.<\/p>\n

Kofi, who has been accused of funding an armed group to retain control over her constituency, has rejected the allegations against her.<\/p>\n

“These are politically motivated accusations. My supporters will start a protest march to prove my innocence,” Kofi said.<\/p>\n

Separately, at least 39 Taliban fighters and 14 soldiers were killed in clashes in the southeastern city of Ghazni.<\/p>\n

The attack<\/a> on the\u00a0strategic city, which straddles the main route between the capital, Kabul, and southern\u00a0<\/span>Afghanistan<\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>began overnight on Friday with the Taliban claiming to have overrun it within hours of the assault.<\/p>\n

Defence ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanish later said the army supported police and the city was now under control of government forces.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Afghanistan’s top electoral body has barred dozens of candidates from running in the upcoming parliamentary elections, officials said. The Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) issued a statement on Saturday with the names of the 35 disqualified candidates – including serving MPs – after it said they were found to have direct links with illegal armed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":11177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}