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UN moves to keep Afghan election clean
Sydney Morning Herald - October 22, 2009
Sabrina Tavernise, Kabul – The United Nations will replace more than 200 poll monitors implicated in fraud in Afghanistan's presidential election.
Speaking on the BBC yesterday, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the UN would take measures to ensure the irregularities that tainted the first round of voting on August 20 would not be repeated.
An inquiry by a UN-backed watchdog this week confirmed staggering levels of fraud, most of it in favour of President Hamid Karzai. It said more than a million votes, a quarter of the total, were suspect.
"We will try to replace all the officials who have been implicated in not following the guidelines or who have been complicit in fraudulent procedures," Mr Ban said.
"There are 380 electoral districts throughout Afghanistan, and we will try to replace more than 200 officials who have been implicated or who have not been following correct guidelines," he said.
He said the UN would work with the NATO-run International Security Assistance Force and Afghan authorities to protect polling stations from Taliban violence.
"We will co-ordinate closely with the ISAF and Afghan national forces to ensure there is security under which the Afghan [people] can express their will without any intimidation or threat.
"We will also try to visit all the polling stations to make sure that no such fraud can happen, and we will try not to open polling stations where during the first election there weren't any polling elections."
Mr Karzai's concession to agree to a run-off was a critical first step towards creating a credible Afghan government, following heavy pressure from European and US officials, including veiled threats that his actions could affect decisions about troops levels.
But diplomats immediately questioned whether a new vote could be organised before the November 7 run-off, and whether a second round of balloting would have more security or less fraud than the first.
"There are huge constraints to delivering in the second round," said one Western official. "Can you deliver a result that is any different from the one we've already got?"
The host of uncertainties left open the prospect of what US officials and their Western allies expect will be three weeks of ferocious horse-trading as Mr Karzai and his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, decide whether they can strike a deal to avert a run-off. A run-off vote would carry enormous political risks for them, as well as strategic ones for the US and its allies.
Diplomats said efforts to get the two men to join forces would intensify. Dr Abdullah has hinted that he would be open to negotiate, but Mr Karzai seemed to rule it out at a news conference on Tuesday. "The coalition has no legitimacy and is not possible," he said, standing alongside Democrat senator John Kerry, who negotiated with Mr Karzai for almost 20 hours over five days to accept the results.
But officials said if there were a deal, it was likely to involve Dr Abdullah conceding to Mr Karzai in return for an important role in overhauling Afghanistan's constitution to give the President less power.
Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission said Mr Karzai had received 49.7 per cent of the votes, higher than a foreign-led panel of experts conducting the audit had found, but still below the more than 50 per cent required to avoid a run-off.
While some see a deal between Mr Karzai and Dr Abdullah as a way to create a credible government, many in the Obama Administration believe it would only make the running of Afghanistan more chaotic, given the enmities between the two.
After Mr Karzai's complaints of foreign interference, the Administration is also determined not to appear to meddle.
"We feel very strongly about this," said one of President Barack Obama's closest foreign policy advisers. "We had a big stake in making sure we had a legitimate election. But this is up to the Afghans."
As it became clear the auditors would invalidate enough votes to push Mr Karzai below the threshold for a run-off, the US stepped up efforts to persuade him that he had not won outright. (New York Times, AFP)
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