Elections officials in Afghanistan have disqualified dozens of candidates from the country's upcoming parliamentary elections because of alleged links to militias.
A commissioner of the U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission, Ahmad Zia Rafat, said Wednesday that 36 names were removed from the list of final candidates.
The ECC said the candidates were given a chance to fight their disqualification, but they failed to prove their eligibility to run in the September election.
Afghanistan's election laws prohibit any members of illegal armed groups from seeking office.
Afghan election officials have said they are determined to hold a fair parliamentary election, after fraud allegations marred last year's presidential vote.
The ECC found there were massive irregularities in those ballots, and threw out a third of the votes cast for President Hamid Karzai.
Some information for this report was provided by AP and AFP.
