Kabul: Afghanistan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah has barred leaders of the electoral commissions from leaving the country.

Abdullah, in a decree ordering “precautionary measures," said "the head and members of both commissions (the Independent Election Commission and The Independent Electoral Complaint Commission), including the chiefs of the secretariats and their deputies, until the final decision of the courts, been have been banned from leaving the country,” Tolo News reported.

Nasrat Rahimi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, in response to Abdullah’s decree barring the leaders of the electoral commissions from leaving the country, said: “According to the law, only the Attorney General's Office and Supreme Court have the authority to ban the people.”

“Every move of the Ministry of Interior would be according to the law,” Rahimi said.